


Our Hearts Bleed Embers

by midnightflame



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Battlefield Violence, Blade of Marmora Keith (Voltron), Courtship, Cultural Differences, Eventual Sex, M/M, Magical Realism, Medieval influences, Minor Thulaz, Mutual Pining, Political Alliances, Psychological Trauma, Slow Burn, Warring Empires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-03-04 14:45:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13366932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightflame/pseuds/midnightflame
Summary: The world is at war.Altea, once a devastated nation, now sits at the vanguard of a movement against the Galra Empire. Its newly crowned Queen hopes that her human Commander can do what he did for her flagging army and rally the world around them. She just hadn't counted on an alliance with Galra's rogue state, Marmora, or its purported prince.Marmora's last hopes rest on its young prince, a half-breed who could change Galra itself and bring a soul back to a fractured empire. But they need support, and their prince needs training. They find both in Altea's High Commander.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> So, this story has been in the works for a long while now, and I finally have the time to sit and devote my attention to it! It all started when [Synne](https://twitter.com/synnesai) brought to me this idea for a Sheith Royalty AU, and everything sort of took off from there. This is going to be a slow burn story, woven in between this tale of warring nations and political courtship. I hope you all enjoy this as it has been a great love of mine to indulge! Thank you all for reading, and please look forward as this story unfolds! <3
> 
> And as always, feel free to come yell at me over on [twitter](https://twitter.com/bymidnightflame)!

Have you ever stood at the end of the world?

Most imagine it would all go down in flames like it’s promised in the great legend. Clouds of smoke would billow out over the land, choking lungs and hearts alike, madness would swallow the skies, and beneath the hooves of some giant war-beast, bellowing chaos into the air, Hope would be crushed. 

Broken, and then forgotten. 

The earth would tremble under the weight of the end. The rivers would weep. The world would cry out. 

All will be lost. All will be lost. 

Legends are made of the fantastical. They rise above, bolstered by the imaginations of those who would hear them, given iron by those who would believe in them. They take on lives and permeate dreams, steeping in the stories that leap from mouth to mouth until the art no longer lingers in the story itself but in its telling. With each breath, a new life infuses it. With each eager gaze, it takes root in another heart.

Legends take the lives of men and turn them into monsters. 

But when Shiro looks around him, he sees that the world does not burn. It carries a heavy stench to it though: the aftermath of death, the beginnings of decay and that piercing metallic edge that inevitably comes to roost on his tongue, calling to mind every beat his heart still makes. If you immerse yourself in it long enough, he knows that scent will become nothing more than background noise, just like the distant clashing of metal, the squeals of horses, and the rally cries driving souls forward into the jaws of fear.

Some will be swallowed whole, devoured before they ever get a strike against it. Others will lose a finger or maybe an arm, but they’ll still walk away from it, shaken and scarred, with stories to tell and horrors walking in their dreams. And another handful, the few though not necessarily the brave, will wrench those jaws wider still and scream into the darkness within. They’re the ones who will rip Fear’s teeth from their very sockets, string them up and adorn their necks with them. 

They’re the ones who take Fear’s fangs and sink them into their enemies. 

“So, what do you think, Black?”

The mare gives a shake of her head, ears flicking back and forth. She’s a rather large creature, standing a full three hands higher than the average Altean mount, with a coat blacker than sin on Sunday save for a thin strip of white that runs from forelock to muzzle. Like the gods had to get the last laugh and remind him that forgiveness could break through smoke and ruin alike, that not all things are ever truly lost. She turns her head and huffs into his ear, causing him to grimace faintly at the intrusion of whisker against its folds and hot breath into its canal. 

“You could’ve just said it,” he mutters, though a small smile starts to assert itself over his lips. “No need to go whispering what I can already see for myself.”

There’s an answering stomp of her foot, another shake of her head that would have sent her mane rippling along the length of her neck, but like all Altean war mounts, it had been strung through with silver thread, braided and then looped into tight knots against her crest. Small crystals shimmer within each bundle of hair, pulsing softly with white light. Shiro needs only to give a tap of his finger against her neck to silence them all. For now, they twinkle like rogue stars, set in a firmament foreign but adapted to, for a purpose only they seem to know. 

Shiro exhales softly, setting a hand on her shoulder. “They’re good.”

They. 

The enemy. 

A single person currently defending their position on a hill two over from where Shiro himself stands. Behind them, the remains of a camp sit like a hollowed out whale, once large and imposing, but now nothing more than sputtering fires, its dark purple tents slashed and studded with arrows. Bodies are strewn about its grounds, some still wailing with the last of their lives while others have already bled out their warrior’s anthems. A sea of red, churning the ground into a sloppy mix of blood and dirt. 

Shiro wonders how many lost their chance at victory to something as mundane a notion as good footing.

Like much in life, though, he knows that it’s the little things, the simple ones that are often the linchpins of success. Footing made everything on the battlefield. He imagines it’s why that lone Marmora soldier had unhorsed before facing a platoon of the Altean army. Better to take your chances on foot than fall and lay under the mercy of a thousand pounds of flailing horseflesh. 

Black nudges his elbow.

“I suppose we’ve seen enough,” he answers, pushing her head gently to the side so he can grab her reins. He hoists himself up easily enough, metal chinking as he settles into place over her back. She grunts at him, confirmation that she’s ready. With a tap of his finger against her neck, once then twice, the crystals flare a heart-bearing red. Seconds later, armor cascades down her neck. It starts over her face, plate after plate linking as each one materializes. He knows Altea’s royal insignia - a lion rearing with a basilisk crushed underfoot - is emblazoned at the center of her forehead, glowing a silvery-blue where it’s etched into the black of her chamfron. 

_All kings, all queens - they spring from the blood of another who wore that same crown._

Giving a little pressure with his calves, he starts his mount towards the hill. With every step, another piece of armor lays itself across her body until her haunches are cloaked in midnight metal, and her hoofbeats are drowned out. Shiro remembers the first time he had seen her dressed in full military regalia, so deep was the black of the armor plating he couldn’t tell where her coat ended and the barding began. Only the crest of her neck had stood out, left uncovered. He touches it now, fingertips glancing against the tightly bound knots of her mane, each one counted in turn. Ten in total. By the time they reach the bottom of the hill, the crystals have returned to their faint silvery glow, still as brilliant as starlight threaded through dreams.

A horse screams from the ground above them, dirt flying in all directions, and a body is sent tumbling down the hill. No more life in it than in a mid-autumn’s leaf. Down and down it goes until it succumbs to gravity’s grasp, legs splayed out, and its arm bent at an inhuman angle not more than ten feet from where Black now stands. The armor tells Shiro it had been one of his own men. Its silver, once polished to a sun-stealing shine, is streaked with mud and the robin’s blue plume stemming from his helmet is more dirt than feather. 

The last of the company sent up this particular hill. 

He glances upward and sees the Marmora soldier standing there at the top of the hill. Shiro gives them a short salute before dropping his hand down to his lap and taking hold of Black’s reins once more. They’re plated too, scaled in the same way a serpent’s body is, but as his right hand comes to wrap around them, a pale purple light shoots along their length like a pulse of blood rushing for the heart. Black shakes her head as the light hits her bit, coating the silver with a lavender glow, and dances with anticipation. 

“You’ve taken out all the men I had brought with me,” Shiro calls up to the soldier.

They respond with a cant of their head to the right, and Shiro imagines the smirk that must be coating their lips at that moment. Questioning him down to the very threads that bind his soul to his body. Another moment passes; Black snorts. The soldier shifts again, grip tightening around the blade in their hand. It glimmers red in the sunlight. 

“And you have yet to fight.”

Him. 

Shiro smiles as that information collects in his head, pulling together what he knows of this being standing before him. He’s shorter than most of Marmora’s populace, but he speaks with the same ferocity in his voice. The sort of man who would die for notions that bled greatness.

“Why else do you think I am here?” Shiro answers.

Though the idea that he has yet to fight is something of an utter lie. Perhaps he had not been at the forefront facing off against this man, but he had led an entire platoon here this morning, armed with the knowledge that the heart of Marmora’s army still beat within this campsite. He hadn’t expected it to be an easy fight, as no army with any hope still clinging to its breast would leave their very lifeline exposed for the cutting, but he had thought to bring this battle to its close with one last potent strike. Not even taking into account the loss of life, a quarter of Altea’s lowlands had already been rendered unplantable for this season’s crops.

It had been a rather calculated decision on the part of Marmora’s generals, one Shiro had hoped to avoid before the battle broke out, but as so many things in war, one rarely got the luxury of having every wish granted. You all too often played the hand that came your way, in the hopes that the choices made here and now would somehow curb future disasters before they found their own tooth and claw. 

Black paws at the ground, gouging the earth with her hoof over and over. Shiro presses his heel into her side, causing the horse to prance to the right and placing the soldier front and center of them both. From this angle, the sun cuts across the man’s side, his armor glittering like shattered starlight, but that’s not what catches Shiro’s attention. With every step Black had taken, a ripple of color had worked its way across the soldier’s armor, reminding him of legends older than the ones of Altea’s gods. The stories that whispered of mountainous beasts that roamed the earth and spit fire from their gullets. It reminds him of that lift of lip when a snarl starts to form, and there beyond the point of teeth and the pink of tongue, a cauldron makes a home of a throat, ready to burn the world down with a single sigh. 

The soldier lifts his head, and Shiro finds the gesture almost haughty. _Beckoning_. It pulls a tight smile over his lips and sends his blood racing into that pre-battle tumult, that one where his mind insists this is the time to run and save himself while his spirit puts iron in his veins and chainmail over his heart. No matter what the cause, how righteous or vain it may be, it leads instinct to fight it out with his better judgment, and it’s the reason why battlefields are made not only on the earth but in the hearts and minds of men. 

“Do you want to surrender?”

Shiro blinks at the question. The sheer audacity of it has put every threat of riot in his core to silence. He finds himself grinning up at the man like he had asked him to deliver the moon complete with its retinue of stars and not bring an entire army to its knees. 

“As you’ve said, I’ve taken out the last of your men, and now, there is only you.”

The moon, Shiro thinks, might have been an easier job. 

“And if I’m not mistaken, you are the last one standing as well,” Shiro replies. The grin still hasn’t left his lips, clinging like a fading laugh to tongue. And well, is this not an amusing situation to find one's self in?

The soldier shifts his weight. “Do you think you can kill me?”

“I don’t want to.” 

“That’s not what I was asking.”

“I know, and I’m simply telling you I would prefer not to kill you. I do, however, want to end this battle and to do that, I need to know if Marmora’s prince is still alive within this camp. If he’s not then I have no -“

“He is.”

The reply is an arrow-shot, straight and sharp and utterly fearless. It cuts his own voice off as those words land in a place Shiro had not been expecting. Black nickers softly beneath him, her sides quivering against his legs. There are one of two potential scenarios for this situation, and both put him in a rather precarious spot. 

What Shiro does know is that he cannot kill this man. 

“Will you turn him over to me?”

“No.”

“Then you leave me little choice,” Shiro exhales. Tension spills back into his veins as he slips from his saddle and lands with a heavy and somewhat wet thud. His mount pushes her muzzle into his back as he passes, breathing out hotly against him. He gives her a light rap of his knuckles over her chamfron, right where Altea’s insignia sits glowing still, and takes another breath for himself.

Tipping his head toward her, he offers a half-cocked smile. “I know. . .I’ll try not to die.”

She blows out a breath, gives a switch of her tail and a flick of her ears before backing up several steps. The indication for room needed is presented in the form of violet light coursing down his right forearm. It traverses over the pitch black lines etched into his skin, some running parallel to his bones while others encircle his elbow, wrist, palm, and fingertips. His armor itself is as black as a summer's night devoid of starlight and hope. Over his left shoulder, a pauldron pieces itself together. It takes the shape of a lion’s head roaring at the world, its fangs piercing the air, its eyes burning like purple flame. His helmet is different from those of the Altean ranks, close fitting, with its metal coursing along his cheeks then jutting to fine tapering points several inches below his chin. Looking at the right side of his head, one would swear some mythical beast had raked molten claws along the metal encasing it. Three thin but deep scars dig into the helm's side, not enough to reveal skin and hair beneath, but enough to warp the metal, melted down then frozen in waves, as though it had tried to refashion itself into something whole again before its efforts were cut short. Stemming from those gash marks, a long feathering spike trails out into the air, not unlike a crane’s wing as it prepares for flight. Unlike the Marmora soldier, he has no visor covering his face, but rather, his helmet curves around his eyes, three prongs darting inward: one each along his cheekbones and the third at the center of his brow.

Shiro had spent hours watching this transformation in the mirror, trying to piece it together or maybe tear it apart. He's still not sure which had driven him, but he can see it in his dreams just as clearly as he can the torn up grass at his feet and the man staring down at him from atop the hill.

He takes a breath, and with it, the light along his forearm dims to an ember’s glow. Aside from his face, it remains the one place on him not covered in armor. He does, however, have a demi-gauntlet for his right hand, the black metal lightweight and flexible. Beneath it, the same serpentine-armor covering Black’s reins gloves his hand in full, only its metal is rooted in the circle of dark ink and violet luminescence curling around his wrist. He feels no pain from it, not even as he gives his wrist an experimental twist, but he hasn’t for a long time now. 

“What is a human doing with Galra magic?!”

The question is thoroughly and shamelessly accusatory.

Shiro glances up at the soldier. “Perhaps if I manage not to kill you, and find this prince of yours, I’ll get the chance to tell you that story.”

“I’m asking you now!” the man cries out, brandishing his sword in Shiro’s direction. 

He takes a breath. As in so many of his previous battles, the sequencing of arming himself had taken mere seconds. Even if the soldier had charged him, by the time he would have made it to the bottom of the hill, Shiro would have been fully armored and likely would have had the man on the end of his own weapon. A rather unfortunate way to think about the moment, but a valid truth. However, it seems this soldier, for all his brash honesty, had more than a handful of intelligence in his arsenal. Where most would have tried to cut Shiro down before he had fully armed himself, this man had thought through his position and chose instead to hold his ground.

And Shiro is not looking forward to charging up that hill, no matter how small this one might be called.

“We have a few other things to settle before we get to that point,” Shiro answers. And he knows the smile he flashed must have been infuriating because the man looks around him like he’s trying to drag fire out of the very air itself. Or perhaps simply damning the gods themselves, along with him, all while hoping a portal to the Underworld opens beneath Shiro’s very feet.

Which may have been rather convenient magic to wield but one spoken of only jokingly in what-if scenarios or by mages who had already lost half their minds to insanity and were trying to barter what was left to madness. Beneath his feet, Shiro knows there is only the blood of the earth and the remains of those who once roamed its skin. No inescapable prison for souls, no fire and brimstone. There is only dirt and life, and one day, he’ll be buried there.

Today, however, is not that day.

At the very least, he’s not planning for it to be. But war has a funny way of interfering with best-laid plans.

“Then get your weapon,” the man yells down at him, frustration scalding his words raw.

Were they at any other time, Shiro thinks he could actually like this Marmora soldier. Confident, a bit brash even, and more talented than most of the men that walked through his training halls. He holds his arms out at his sides and wiggles his fingers with palms open towards the hill. “We haven’t even engaged in combat yet.”

A low growl tears through the air at those words, and seconds later, Shiro watches as the charge is made. At him. He would have laughed, only the speed at which the soldier moves is absolutely astounding, like a hawk in free fall, and he has to force his next breath into focusing. The light flares along his right forearm once more.

He greets the soldier’s first strike with a parry, metal squealing as blade meets blade. The man backs off, eyeing the weapon now in Shiro’s hand.

“You wield that one-handed.”

Again with the accusations. As if Shiro himself is the abomination at the root of this war, some hellish creature conjured from the depths to shred the ideas of right and proper in this world until they lay bleeding and gasping for breath at its feet. 

He glances down briefly at his sword. It’s double-edged, a single groove running a third of the way down its center, and like the rest of his armor is a deep, soul-swallowing black. The length of its grip clearly indicates it’s meant for two hands, but Shiro has only his right one wrapped around it. He waves the blade in the air, a short little nod of motion, before holding it steady once more.

“Wonders never cease. Would you like another minute to stare?”

And he means it, though it seems the genuineness of that question only provokes the man before him. Within the span of a breath, Shiro finds himself losing ground against a flurry of strikes, each parried easily enough but not without a few inches given away in concession. No more missed by him than a few coins would be from the royal coffers. The soldier moves well though, his steps solid in the way relentless training makes them, his thrusts accurate. Inexperience shows itself in smaller ways: the reckless push forward at times, the almost categorical method of each strike, the occasional haphazard chance taken on an opening perceived yet all too classically baited. He recovers quickly from his mistakes though, and that makes him a daunting adversary. 

But what catches his eye, yet again, is that ripple of color across the soldier’s armor. Like a heart beating proof of a valiant life, red flares beneath the scales of his breastplate. It’s an unusual piece, or rather, the entirety of his armor is. Upon first glance, the metal appears to be solid, a single sheet formed to fit and protect as intended, but with every parry he makes, Shiro sees the way that breath of red lifts the metal ever so slightly, like a wolf raising its hackles, as it moves across the man’s body. It’s guided, he realizes, by the intended point of impact. When Shiro aims for the soldier’s elbow, the red flares bright around it, only to die down to its seamless black when the strike fails to land, then sparking again when his sword glances against his right shoulder. It lacks the glow that his own forearm carries, but the color stands out in the same way blood does over snow. 

You can’t help but notice it, can’t help the odd silence that fills the inner chambers of your heart upon seeing it. Beautiful in the way that Death can sometimes be when your own mortality brushes up against your soul and you remember you are not yet for the grave. 

They continue trading blows, circling around one another before colliding together again and again, with the shrieking of metal and that same brilliant red shifting like the current over the man’s armor. Which has brought something else to Shiro’s attention: his face is entirely covered. Eyes, nose, and mouth all completely obscured. Yet, Shiro can hear him as clearly as he can his own voice, and it’s not like the man has passed out yet. 

But as the Queen’s advisor liked to say - _The curiosities in this world only grow more curious until you take the time to get to know them. And when you don’t, they become as large as myths and make tavern talk all the more entertaining._

Shiro parries another strike, following it with a punch of his hilt against the man’s upper right arm and forcing him to retreat several steps.

“Ready to give up yet?” he breathes out, hoping the strained smile in those words hasn’t quite reached his lips.

“Only in death,” the soldier replies. And there is nothing amusing buried in those words, only a steadfast belief, like so many Galra carry, that battle brings either victory or death. Both perfectly acceptable, for defeat is only acknowledged when it’s brought home in a coffin. 

He had a reply for that. He did but at that moment the sky above bursts with clouds of dark blue smoke. Each is followed by a second one of white. Three in succession - blue then white - spanning across the breadth of the battlefield. Any soldier still on his feet and fighting would see it, and the sight of it spills relief into Shiro’s veins like meltwater into a river during spring.

But just as he’s about to take a breath, he finds the man in mid-charge, blade pointed and ready to take out Shiro’s heart. 

“Weapons down, soldier!” The words come out as a commanding roar and are followed all too quickly by a run of his sword’s edge along the man’s blade, tipping it uselessly into the air. The affair ends with the point of his own sword set against an all-too exposed throat. Red burns like a star exploding into existence, again and again, where the tip presses in against armor. 

A warning, on both sides. Shiro understands that much from the color glaring at him from the man’s throat.

“They’ve called a truce.”

“Like hell they have!"

“Look at the sky,” Shiro says, calm though authority is still strung, iron-clad, through his words. 

The man tips his head, the red continues to pulse against sword point, and Shiro wonders if this is what it means to stand with one foot dangling over the ledge. 

With an exhale and a step back, the soldier lifts his arms. He doesn’t disarm, but the gesture is enough. “I didn’t notice.”

And he sounds conciliatory in that. Shiro believes him without question.

“You would do better to pay more attention to your surroundings on the battlefield. It’s not always about everything right in front of you.”

Shiro looks upward once more to where the wind now carries the smoke and smears it across the sky. As he gives his right wrist a roll, the light flares to a vibrant purple and his sword all but disintegrates, as if inch by inch it’s eaten by the air itself. It’s a weight he’s grateful to be rid of, and for the first time since setting sight on the camp and its last-standing guardian, Shiro drinks in a deep breath and exhales it all the deeper. 

The soldier has his head turned away from him, though whether in shame or irritation or some hot-blooded mix of both, Shiro doesn’t know. His armor no longer carries that red undertone to it, though. In its resting state, it’s the same black as his own, though its build has been adapted to Marmora’s preferences. Sleeker, more form fitting. Starting at the knees, Marmora’s symbol sits like a lightning-struck dagger, zig-zagging twice before diving down to a blade’s point along the greaves. Occasionally, a faint crimson light runs through the etched lines of it, quick as a flick of fin beneath a wave. 

After another moment of silence, the metal shielding the man’s face begins to shimmer, growing more transparent by the second until only a hood is left draped over his head. Sweat runs in small beads from his temples where they disappear beneath the edge of armor still coiled around his throat. His cheeks are flushed from the effort exerted, and his lips hold a slight part to them. Not quite a pant, no gulping for air, but his breathing is still rapid, his chest heaving. 

A need for oxygen. The gratefulness of having a chance to devour it. And even with all of that apparent, the man turns his gaze on Shiro. 

It’s like being pinned down by the attention of a leopard. 

“You’re. . .”

But Shiro doesn’t finish that sentence. A smile climbs over his lips instead, just a bit incredulous in its making, and if it weren’t for the defiance still burning like the gods’ eternal flame in those violet eyes, he would have laughed. 

This soldier is Galra, and he is not. 

“Looks like you’re going to owe me that story now.”

This man is Marmora’s last hope, and in that, perhaps the world’s. 

“And which one is that, prince?”

He receives a blink in answer, the man’s expression overcome by surprise and bringing an almost boyish softness to his features. There are few at court who wouldn’t have been charmed by such a look, but standing here on the battlefield, Shiro only feels a faint twinge in his heart over the sight. 

“How do you know that?”

Shiro tips his head to the side. How did he know? As he folds his arms across his chest, he hums out a heavy breath. “Not even the Galra are above their rumors. Especially in the pits.”

The prince furrows his brow, consternation brewing. He shifts his weight, and only then does he look back up at Shiro. 

Sorrow.

There’s something pained in the gaze that meets his own, a brief flash of it, born of something honest in the very depths of a heart. Human or otherwise. It sets something loose in his chest, shedding unease in its wake the same way a snake molts skin, filling him with empty scrapes of a much larger beast. Shiro tries to dislodge it by clearing his throat and straightening his back, neither of which are very effective. 

“Prince Keith, then,” Shiro confirms, with a small bow of his head.

“And you are?”

“Takashi Shirogane.”

The prince’s mouth pulls into a tight line as something dark and heavy passes through his gaze. _Recognition._ Shiro knows that look, just as he knows the defiance reclaiming its place in those eyes.

“Galra’s Champion, and now Altea’s High Commander.”

Shiro nods his head at that. ”So, do you still want to kill me?”

He watches as Keith’s lips twist into a conflicted frown. But the look in his eyes never changes - determined and set, a man ready to march on Death and build a Kingdom on its back.

"I don't know yet."


	2. Sanctuary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are with chapter one! Thank you all who joined back when the prologue went up and hello to those of you joining this burgeoning story now <3 As I said before, this will be a slow-burn piece and we are just now starting to build some things up for it. I hope you all continue to enjoy this as it has been in my heart for a while now. Thank you again for reading!
> 
> And as always, feel free to come yell at me over on [twitter](https://twitter.com/bymidnightflame)!

The Altean lowlands aren’t quite as low as one would think. In fact, they aren’t even the lowest land point in Altea; that particular title belongs to the small but luxurious swath of coastline along the White Sea further to the south. No, the lowlands are so-called for being the gulf of land that sits between the Krell mountain range and the rolling hills that climb their way toward the Altean capital. When rock and river finally give way to grass and dirt, fertile and thus highly coveted dirt, the lowlands officially begin. 

Shiro had led the remaining legion of his army over its trampled terrain. Back to the lines that somehow designated safe from unsafe, as though war ever truly abided by such rules. Perhaps there is something in the idea of honor, in not overstepping set and regulated bounds that kept some semblance of sanity to the madness of it all. But like all rules, even those made for wartime engagement, some sat there begging for the breaking (it took only the right. . .or perhaps too-wrong mind to hear it). So, what of honor then? What of rules? You simply made it a less lucrative deal to come charging into the heart of military might. Better to fight for inches than lose the bulk of your force to some reckless and desperate maneuver. 

After all, not all armies are composed of berserkers, blind to the terror; mere mortals turned titans of war. And honestly, what a fine mess of an army that would be. Unreliable at its best, utterly annihilating at its worst. 

He lets that thought slide from the forefront of his mind, to sink and settle among the depths of so many other thoughts like it. Those are the things better contemplated when he has the time to dredge the waters of his head and sift through all the mud of memory and long-drowned fears. For now, Shiro scans the countryside, where dirt roadways once more become hedged in by wooden fences. He can see the smoke rising towards the sky, like hands grasping for redemption, from a dozen different fires. The Altean camp had taken over several large tracks of farmland itself, with promises of compensation to be paid to the farmers. Not just for the land but for the animals trimmed down and portioned out to feed a legion of soldiers, the grain stores utilized, the pastures being mowed down by warhorses. Shiro had seen to it days in advance when it became clear there would be no averting this battle to the table for discussion instead. 

War itself is an atrocity all its own, plucking souls from bodies as easily as one shells peas from their pods, but the real devastation lay in the aftermath. It sat in the ruin of lives left to pick-up after the armies were gone and the earth was left behind like a wounded beast - its skin flayed open by hooves, its ground tainted with blood and muck, warped into a final resting place for the fallen. What should have sprouted harvest, now left barren by the conflict of nations. 

A plot of bones and bled-out dreams would feed nothing more than regret and resentment. 

Shiro knows it will take months to reclaim the land they had devastated. And months more until another harvest will be seen. He knows the people will accept it because it’s not like before. Because to them, it’s better to struggle and rebuild under Altean rule than to be run hollow by Galra. 

But even notions like that only hold up for so long. Memory has a funny way of shriveling to tinder when the promises of tomorrow fail to bloom. 

The first lines of the campsite come into view. It’s nothing more than a thin scattering of small campfires where soldiers sit, still wearing their armor. Some have their eyes turned toward the sky while others stare into the flames like the gods themselves might speak, voices crackling hot and searing their exhaustion with words of praise for the valiant. Laughter breaks out from somewhere further down the road where the tents grow thicker and the tension lighter. Shiro nudges Black off to the side of the road. She shakes her head as her tailhead bumps against the top rail of a fence. He offers her a soft pat against her neck, now divested of its armor, and murmurs a soothing ‘steady’ when she grunts at him. The crystals still glimmer in her mane like star-touched ice. Flashing, flashing, flashing. Sometimes, he thinks he can make sense of it, some pulse threading through them or a code writing itself out in sparks of light, but he never quite grasps the full story. He only knows that with every quiet beat, his Queen is still alive and well. 

And that is all he really needs to know in the end. Because without Allura, Altea will fall. He finds it a bit ironic that the same might be said for Marmora and its fledgling prince.

“Commander!”

Soldiers trail down the road and disappear into a thin black line winding from the depths of the lowlands. Shiro had been watching it, scouring the horizon for any signs of unrest, but they keep trudging forward, horses and men alike, shoulders and steps heavy. All except one. Shiro knows that voice calling out for him, and seconds later the man appears galloping toward him on a mare with a blue roan coat that ripples like ocean waves caressing sand. He pulls her to a halt several feet away, where she proceeds to dance around in a circle, head tossing, and only begins to settle down when he urges her closer to Black. She blows out a hard breath, her sides heaving. Black nickers at her, their noses touch, and just like that the small mare exhales heavily and drops her head as the tension unknots from her muscles. 

“What is it, soldier?”

The man lifts an eyebrow at him, thin lips pulling to a faintly amused smile. “Soldier? You know who I am!”

“I know that we are still technically on the field of battle,” Shiro replies, arching his eyebrow in return. 

He can see the sweat running in rivulets down the man’s face and neck, but despite the apparent efforts exerted, he seems no worse for the wear. There's a bit of mud flecking his boots, a near-empty quiver at his horse’s flank. If not for the nature of their current setting, Shiro might have mistaken him as one of the Junkers still in training.

“They called a truce! That means we can talk - man to man, friend to friend - wait, we are friends, aren’t we?!” 

Shiro exhales slowly and resists the urge to rub at his temples. There is nothing in the man’s expression to suggest he believes a word of what he is saying, but the faux sense of horror and concern is there like it all too often is. Glaring bright and ready to jump on an equally false sense of condemnation should the answer be anything other than positive. But he isn’t sure he’s prepared for this level of idiocy, innocent as it may be, only three hours after staring down potential death at the hands of Marmora’s prince. “Yes, Lance, we are. But you are also my subordinate, and truce or no truce we are still on the grounds of war. Am I understood?”

Lance nods, though the flicker of amusement still dances in his eyes. Even if Shiro can clearly see the worry veiled behind it. With a swallow, Lance runs his hands through his hair, causing the short brown locks to spike up in wayward directions like new shoots pushing through spring dirt. Shiro has to stifle a small bubble of laughter at the sight of it, and instead settles for a smile built on fondness. The gesture unravels Lance in all the ways Shiro had hoped it would. His shoulders take on the sloping ease of the relaxed, and his lips begin to curl once more with his own smile in response. 

“Got it. Not in the clear yet, which speaking of, Coran sent me with this message.”

“Lance.” There is a full warning in the name, dagger-sharp and ready to draw blood. “Important information.”

“Should always be delivered first.”

Black’s ears flick back, flattening against her head. Shiro feels something in him deflate, and this time, he turns his gaze briefly to the sky and wonders whose god thought making men into better beings included holding a lit match to the fuse of anger and seeing who had the audacity to blow it out before flame met fuel. 

Another exhale, and with it, the space in his head goes dark. His gaze meets Lance’s once more. There’s worry drifting throughout those blue eyes staring back at him, a nebulous branch of emotion that’s reached down and tugged lips into a half-smile uncertain of itself. It’s all Shiro needs to see.

He lifts a bare hand and sets it to the back of his head. The soldiers keep streaming down the road, the line of them still running dark into the horizon. A shadow of war. It would take several more hours before the last of them made it back to the camp. And in the meantime - 

“Where are they?”

Lance clears his throat softly and loosens the leather ties of his right bracer. It’s the standard Altean design, bright silver chainmail sandwiched between dark brown leather, its edges lined in small crystals that twinkled in unison with those threaded through Black’s mane. There are lines etched in light blue around each crystal, ocean waves cresting and consuming every one of them; it was an addition requested by Lance himself and executed by Shiro’s trusted blacksmith. Slipping his fingers beneath it, he withdraws a piece of rolled parchment, now flattened and wrinkled at its seams. He hands it over with a look more confident in itself, though Shiro imagines it has more to do with the completion of a duty than any genuine sense of _well done_.

“I heard she was setting up the tent near the Puig’s left arm,” Lance offers, a grimace trailing in the wake of his words. 

The Puig. A river cut down to considerable size as it ran through this part of Altea. So named for the small nation it eventually emptied into, but most often called the Serenaux by the majority of Alteans. It had a steady flow, calm and readily harnessed, and it had provided the northernmost border for their battle. Shiro had spent a patient night along its banks, coaxing attack forward into the maw of his army, and as such, it remains the bloodiest part of ground seen by this battle. That Allura had sought out its shores to set up her tent for negotiation leaves an ill feeling wading around in Shiro’s core, like some half-decayed corpse shambling for a grave it will never find. 

He nods at Lance, mouth pulled tight, then turns his attention to the letter in his hand. A simple summons to the place already stalking the forefront of his mind. “I’m heading out to meet Coran and the Queen,” he tells Lance with a flick of his gaze to the sky above. By the time he reaches the designated site, the horizon will be grasping for the sun. “Make sure there are no stragglers. If there are wounded who need help getting back, gather what soldiers are still fresh to aid them. Remember, Lance - we are held by this truce until we receive word otherwise.”

“And the bodies?”

The blue of Lance’s eyes seems to waver, like heat over desert sands. He blinks, and the feeling is gone, a mirage of emotion dissipated by harsh reality. Shiro turns to look out at the column of soldiers once more. 

“You have until sundown. By then we should know what Marmora wants and if Allura is willing to accept their terms. . .but I don’t want our soldiers lingering on the fields after dark. Even if we come to terms, Galra may still play a hand in this. Maintain the camp boundaries, and if something more were to happen, you know how to signal us.”

Just when Shiro thinks Lance might say something more, he merely shakes his head and murmurs a soft _yes, sir_. With a beat of a fist against his chest, he turns his mare towards the stream of soldiers and sets off for its trailing end. Shiro doesn’t wait for the dust to settle before he urges Black into motion. She wheels around to face north, throwing her head up with a shrill neigh. Her cry cuts across the whisperings of a tired army, its muted sufferings; soldiers lift their heads at her call, and Shiro can almost convince himself they would follow them both down into the bowels of the Underworld itself. But what he thinks he really hears is the collective sigh of a people grateful for the chance to lay down their heads.

*

“There are better locations for this, and you know it, Coran.”

A rumble of sound is what answers that statement. It's not quite a hum but rather the garbling of consonants that forms a prelude to words. Sounded usually to buy time though it can be employed to suggest a certain sense of _discontent_ with the topic at hand. Shiro imagines this particular instance is a mixture of both. Not that Coran has never questioned the Queen, but his idea of defiance and Shiro’s is often the difference between a steak being well-done and medium-rare - one of them didn’t shy away from a little splash of blood. And Allura can cut to the quick with a word or a glance when she wants to, which isn’t often, but Shiro has become well-versed in sharp looks and sharper words. 

It’s enough to leave a man wondering if he’s juggling politics or flaming daggers on some days. 

“I spoke with the Queen regarding the matter, Shiro, and this is what she decided on. If you have further complaint, you are more than welcome to bring it up with her, but I, for one, would much rather settle this business of war. The setting makes no difference on that if acceptable ends for both parties are reached.”

Shiro gives a dissatisfied grunt at that but says no more on the matter. Instead, he sets to his original task - namely securing the perimeters of the grounds Allura had selected for their treaty talk. Or _potential_ talk as it had been explained to him. At some point during the morning, a Marmora messenger had barreled through the ranks of soldiers and fallen at the feet of the Queen’s horse. No weapon had been found on his person, though Shiro was told his tail should have been considered one for all the damage it had done to several in their ranks during his charge forward. He had been searched and found with only a letter sealed with Marmora’s royal crest. Shiro had been given a chance to peruse the letter upon his arrival. The script had been neat, almost clinical in its use of the Altean language, and had asked for a moment’s peace between their forces to discuss terms of a potential treaty. It had been signed by the man acting as head of state, Kolivan, though the seal had been the prince’s, stamped into the signature marbling of black and violet wax used by Marmora’s royalty. 

The messenger now stands with his hands tied and his tail chained to the ground just outside the tent. Blue light pulses around the metal binding him; blood still oozes from a variety of wounds scored across his figure. He remains in full armor, though personal experience tells Shiro that removing a Galra’s armor is no easy task as it can only be done when death has claimed the soul and severed the living’s link with its magic. But he stands quietly, with his head held high, and Shiro finds it a stance worthy of respect. He doesn’t, however, allow his attention to stray too far from him. 

Any enemy worthy of respect is also worthy of one’s attention. 

Perhaps that is merely suspicion speaking, but Shiro has found that suspicion tends to whisper endlessly, like a brook too full of water and too old to be challenged by the landscape around it. Particularly when it’s been fathered by Unrest and Upheaval, War’s favorite predecessors. 

The tent itself is one pulled from Altea’s royal fleet of them. Shiro thinks he recognizes it as the one Allura had used to hold her war councils in on the days prior to the battle's start. It’s large enough to fit twenty good-sized Altean soldiers in full dress, though considerably less Galra. Mud flecks the lower edges of its fabric, a thick canvas dyed in alternating bands of white and Altean blue, though it’s been spared the blood that still stains the surrounding grounds. Hours ago, this place had been considered a battlefield; two days ago it had been the heart of their campaign. Shiro can look out in any direction around them and see his soldiers collecting the dead, piling bodies after identification had been taken. The Galra dead have been left where they had fallen. He imagines Allura will leave it up to Marmora's soldiers to clear them from the field. Otherwise, they will be left to her mercy. 

While both countries preferred to burn their dead, the methods and ceremony had enough differences stacked between them that violating such could be grounds for war itself. After all, there are few things more sacred to a people than the salvation of souls. Desecrate that sanctity, and you murder all hope of understanding and forgiveness with it. 

“He’s not going anywhere you know.”

Shiro blinks back surprise as he turns to look behind him. Standing there is a young woman, her amber eyes flashing with amusement and her lips quirked by an equally amused smirk. She gathers her cloak about her waist, then hoists herself upon the table where she sits, swinging her legs. As nonchalant in her intrusion as a drunkard stumbling into a home that isn’t his. With a flick of her finger, she knocks over one of the small flags painted in Marmora’s colors, the same ones Shiro had used days before to predict movements and indicate likely locations of camps. The maps had long been stowed away; all that remains of his war planning are the scattering of flags and several pieces of blank parchment. 

“Allura called you here as well, Pidge?”

She gives a nod at that, canting her head towards Marmora’s messenger. “She asked me to check on the restraints, and you know, scan the place for all the things you can’t.” 

A grin is flashed at him for that. Leaning back against the table, she cranes her head backward and fixes him once more with her gaze. Her eyes still burn with amusement, all the dark wit a mind as intelligent as hers can see fit to entertain. 

Shiro feels the corner of his mouth twitch. “We all have our talents,” he replies, reaching out to fix the flag now laying on its side. 

“And yours do an uncanny job of keeping you alive.”

“In part thanks to your innovations and Hunk’s mechanical work.”

She waves her hand at him, brushing aside the comment. “Save your praise for Lance. He drinks it up like sweet wine and gets just as drunk on it.”

Those may have been her words, but Shiro can see the way she straightens herself up, her legs stilling and fingers finding the hem of her hunter green cloak rather than the vagrants of the war table. He studies her for a moment as her attention turns to the trim running along the edge, fingertips tracing the silver loops and swirls of its filigree embroidery. A mimicry of leaves and summer flowers. The more he watches, the more it seems like Pidge is conjuring a forest from a carpet of moss.

She very well could if she wanted to. He knows that just as he knows their Marmora captive won’t be breaking his chains anytime soon. 

“If you two are done bantering, perhaps you could finish your jobs here?”

With an awkward clearing of his throat, Shiro turns to smile at Coran. The man had been quietly shuffling through papers in the corner of the tent, well out of eyesight of their _guest_ , whom he hadn’t forgotten as far as Shiro is concerned. Just simply. . .accepted as part of their background setting. 

Pidge saves him the trouble of a reply by jumping off the table with a loud and clearly bothered sigh. She gives a little flourish of her fingers, staring directly at Coran and all but begging for Shiro to call her out for improper conduct before her superiors. That’s all it is though, an empty show and nothing more. Not even a sleight-of-hand trick but merely a gesture of irritation that luckily didn’t come with a stuck-out tongue. For seventeen years old, her talents are renowned and her intelligence beyond compare. Her maturity at times. . .Shiro groans softly, resisting the urge to plant a hand upon his face and scrape the beginnings of exasperation from his expression before they have time to take root.

“Everything is clear, Coran. Pidge wouldn’t be playing around otherwise.”

As he makes his apology for her, Pidge begins brushing the dirt from her leggings and gives each toe of her boots a hard tap against the ground to dislodge whatever mud might have caked to their soles. Once satisfied, she offers Shiro a cheeky grin, one that lures a small but genuinely affectionate smile to his lips, before waltzing over to the opposite corner and dumping herself into a pile of furs. Most likely the ones pulled from the chairs that had previously sat scattered around the table and were now stacked just outside the main entrance. Or what would have been the main entrance if not for the fact that all of the tent’s flaps had been swept aside and tied with thick leather rope to each of its structural poles. It provided an unobstructed view all around the hill. From the corner where Pidge had plopped herself down, she has a direct line of sight on Marmora’s messenger. From Coran’s corner, a view of the field stretching out behind him, where in the distance the main Altean camp sits, its fires sparking to life in slow succession. 

For his part, Shiro remains standing at the center of it all, his hands now pressed flat against the table’s top, and his gaze tacked relentlessly on the newly-stamped path winding its way from the Altean camp to where the tent now sits. Already his knee threatens to drop on him. An instinct carved into him in places he had once thought untouchable, as so many of humankind tends to think of such things. But experience works with a heavy hand at times, and it does not fear a little blood when it comes to the making of hardened souls and brighter futures. Shiro wills himself to remain standing. But, that glimmer of silver on the path, sparkling in the dying afternoon like a star that refuses to be shut off by the light of day? He knows that glow just as he knows the markings etched on his right arm, the images of both incised deep into the banks of his memory. 

“Your Majesty,” he murmurs bowing his head. 

Allura pulls her mount to a halt just inside the tent. The horse, a large white mare with wall eyes, backs up several steps, tossing her head with notable agitation. It isn’t the horse itself that is unsettled, however, but Allura. Shiro can read it in the tight line of her mouth, the hard set of her gaze which darts about the room as if searching for some severed string of destiny (or perhaps a severed head), and the manner in which her hands insist on crushing the reins within their grip. Her mount jerks back another step as Allura’s attention finds the messenger. Shiro notes the twitch of her jaw with just a touch of apprehension.

“Marmora's generals and their prince have agreed to the meeting place. They should be here shortly.” 

Coran’s words cut into the moment, and Shiro isn’t sure whether the Queen’s advisor was gracefully redirecting her ire or was completely oblivious to it. In either case, he lets out a small sigh as Allura sets about reassuring her horse, all apparent thoughts of ending their Marmora captive set aside for more dire business stakes. 

“Good. Let them see what their folly has cost Altea,” she responds, each syllable spiked with shards of both fire and ice. One moment scalding, the next chilling to the very nexus of the soul. “And what it may continue to cost them should they try my patience.”

“With all due respect, Allura,” Shiro says as he moves around the table to stand directly in her line of sight, “we were the ones who declared war.”

“After giving them fair warning to cease their activities along our borders,” she counters, her tone sparing him no remorse.

“They were simply trading. . .”

“Without permission.”

“Because you refused to give it.”

“Have you forgotten, Commander?” Allura snipes the question at him with all the piercing intent bitter memory can hone. “Or need I remind you that the Galra slaughtered my family within our own walls and decimated not just our lands but those of our neighbors all for their vain sense of conquest?”

He nearly flinches at the retort. Flinches not because of the scathing tone or the words themselves, but because of the unspoken ones that glinted as bright as an executioner’s unblemished blade in her eyes. The ones that called out to his own memory of Galra’s misdeeds and the cruelty buried within them. His right hand curls against his thigh, but Shiro doesn’t drop his gaze. “The Marmora are not the Galra.”

“They _are_ Galra, Shiro!” Allura cries out. Leaning forward in her saddle, she gestures towards the messenger. Every word she speaks next strains under the weight of forcibly held tears. “Or has this battle robbed you of your sight?”

“If I may, Your Majesty. . .” Coran says, stepping forward. His hands are laced behind his back, pulling his light blue officer’s coat open and exposing the tunic top beneath. It’s tucked neatly into his pants, still as pristine in its white as the coat is in its blue, though his riding boots are splattered to the ankle with mud. The only testament he has to his activities across the camp. “But I believe this is neither the time nor the place for such a discussion. However, it would behoove you to keep in mind that we are preparing to negotiate with Marmora, and though they may be Galra, they have renounced all of Zarkon’s ambitions. They still hold to the ideals that once made friends between the Galra empire and Altea.”

“Or so they claim,” Allura mutters, visibly chastised. Her expression has lost the hard lines of anger, giving way instead to the somber melancholy of the crestfallen. She breathes in deeply, eyelids dropping shut for a long moment; with her exhale, she opens her eyes and shifts her gaze to Shiro once more. “I am sorry for that, Commander.”

Shiro bows his head at the apology. “We all understand your feelings, Your Majesty.”

“That may be, but anger will not bring about the best interests of my nation or those who stand behind us.” Allura turns to smile, albeit a little sadly, at Coran. “I forgot myself for a moment. I am. . .not used to this position or all its various burdens.”

“Careful there, Majesty. You’re in the presence of mere soldiers and mages,” Pidge calls out from her pile of furs. She’s nestled herself into several of them, head popping out like a fox still reluctant to give up the security of its den. The grin on her face, however, is anything but hesitant. It's a full-on playful tease, her amber eyes glinting with burgeoning mischief behind her glasses. “The gods or heaven or whatever forbid our peasant ears morph your words into something else.”

“Oh, enough of that, Pidge!” Allura replies, the tight line of her lips cracking with the barest hint of a smile. “I know precisely where your loyalties sit, and should they decide to move themselves, I also know I can toss any of you into the Galra borderlands for them to deal with you instead.”

Which is a fair point, and one even Shiro concedes by taking a small step back from the Queen. Altean strength has never been anything to scoff at, though few truly understand the sheer. . .horror of its capacity. Last fall, he had caught Allura resetting one of the royal garden’s statues with the same ease the Taujeerian minister flapped his lace fan during summer council meetings. When he had inquired about the matter of better securing them to their bases, the groundskeeper had informed him the statue outweighed Black. Shiro vowed never to underestimate the Altean Queen after that.

At least when it came to heavy lifting or arm wrestling. 

Coran clears his throat. It’s a deep, commanding sound that has all in the tent looking in his direction. “Remember those words, Your Majesty. We are all still grieving our losses, but it should not stop us from creating a better future for those who need it.”

The way in which Allura’s expression falls, like a sparrow plummeting from a summer's sky, back into the dark cover of embittered sadness tells them all that she understood the truths those words had been alluding to far too well. But it’s the look Coran had tossed at Shiro in their wake that told him he had been speaking to each of them. He shifts his weight under that gaze, one foot to the next, as though he might shift Coran’s attention with the movement as well. Whether it works or not, Shiro can’t rightly say, but Coran eventually gives a nod to Allura and turns his attention to the sheets of parchment on the table. With thumb and forefinger pinching the curled end of his mustache, he clears his throat again.

And says nothing.

He merely sets about lighting the candles scattered throughout the tent, and as for them? They are free to move on, each with their own reminders on the burdens of hope they carry. 

It’s then that Allura finally dismounts from her mare. Quick as a polecat bitten by curiosity, Pidge springs up from her nest of furs to take the horse's reins. The act is neither expected nor demanded but done because some things are simply respected. A queen should not see to her own mount, even if she is willing to do so. Especially not before a still as-of-now designated enemy. Allura offers Pidge a soft smile, followed by an even softer ‘thank you,’ and doesn’t turn toward the inside of the tent until both mage and horse have disappeared into the sun-glossed dark of dusk.

Seeing her there, her head held high even as her gaze remains heavy with too much thought, Shiro notes that she has changed out of her soldier’s armor and into her ceremonial one. Not that it affords any less protection, its silver-blue metal sturdy despite its icy appearance and its various enchantments as difficult to untangle as any Gordian knot. But it’s definitely got a lot more. . . _flare_ when compared to the standard Altean soldier. The breastplate is etched with an intricate design of juniberry flowers, their stems woven together along the borders; at its center, a lion stands in profile, mouth open as it roars at the world, a paw raised and claws extended for the strike. The flower motif continues over her greaves, and had she worn her gauntlets, Shiro knows the very same symbols would have been planted along them as well. Juniberry. The flower that once covered all of Altea, turning its lands violet during the spring, is only now making its comeback across the country. Her helmet is nowhere to be seen, though her hair had been plaited and wrapped around to crown her head. If not for the crystals woven into the white strands, Shiro would have assumed she came here dressed simply for the palatial show of her authority and not the right to war that authority gave her.

“Shiro. . .” 

There’s a tenuous quality to her voice, like a songbird uncertain of the notes of it should be singing. A quality that does not soften her expression, though it melts the blue of her eyes from ice to ocean tide. Shiro steps over to her, beckoned by the uncertainty in her gaze. She sets a hand on his left forearm, just the barest alighting of fingertips against his skin, and exhales softly. “. . .What will they likely ask for? You faced their prince this morning, did you not?” 

He inhales at that. With a brief nod, he answers, “I did. He is. . .formidable on the field, but if my understanding is correct, it will be his advisors and Marmora’s current regent that we should be more concerned with. At the minimum, they will ask for trade routes to be established between our nations. Marmora doesn’t have the means to sustain its populace like Galra does.”

Her mouth purses tight at that, whatever thoughts moving through her head now chilling her gaze.

“Your Majesty, we cannot let them perish. We should not make desperate men of potential allies.”

Allura clicks her tongue. “You know how I feel about this, Shiro.”

“I do. And as much as I understand your feelings, I also know we have to give them a chance, just as we have every other member of our alliance. Marmora wishes to see Galra ambitions curbed as much as any of us.”

“How can you even say that with such certainty?” she hisses, words scalding once more with all she’s left unsaid. 

Shiro rolls his shoulders. Fingers flex at his side, his heartbeat stumbles for a breath, and Allura finally removes her hand. “It was a Galra who delivered me to you. They’re not all bad, Allura.”

The look she casts at him is rueful, her lips once again pursed, her brow knit together. “That is the only reason I did not have him shot on the spot.”

“Your generosity knows no bounds,” Shiro laughs. It’s a dark sound, heavy in the way endless night can be when the world has finally given up hope for dawn. Life still persists, a heart keeps its blood-pumping rhythm, and a man learns to smile by starlight instead. 

Allura smacks him over the shoulder. “Do not mock your Queen.”

When Shiro looks at her though, she is trying to snuff out a smile. She gives a vague gesture to his chest, leaving Shiro to answer with a questioning lift of his eyebrow. 

“That hurt.”

Laughter chokes on itself in his throat. Shiro immediately brings a hand to his mouth, waving the other before him until he’s cleared the mess of would-be mirth with a solid swallow. “It’s reinforced leather, your majesty. It’s meant to stop an arrow shot, so yes, smacking it may hurt.”

His armor had long melted away from his form, recalled the moment he had dismounted from Black and entered the tent. Since his arrival, the markings over his right arm have been quiet, now a matte black over his skin and offering no hint as to the power sitting dormant within their lines. They remain in plain view, however, his arms completely bare. Over his chest, he wears an armored vest instead, pieces of articulated leather with chainmail sandwiched between them. It allows him to move relatively freely, and yes, would most likely leave a hand stinging particularly when a hit against it was misjudged in its strength.

“You should really find another color,” Allura cuts back, the whispers of a would-be pout hiding in her words.

“You’re the one who appointed me your Black Knight upon my arrival.”

“I named you head of the Black Guard.”

“Which makes me the Black -”

He doesn’t finish that statement. Just outside the tent, their Marmora _captive_ still stands, bound as before, but now with his head canted towards the right. The direction by which the prince and his chosen escort would be coming from at any time now. It’s a subtle shift, but one that catches Shiro’s attention the moment it happens. He steps before Allura without a word. Coran, noticing the spark of tension in the air, lifts his head and likewise looks down the expected pathway of arrival. All around them, soldiers are still collecting the dead and the wounded. Altean only. Shiro has yet to see any of Marmora’s ranks among them, their dead left scattered across the field down to the river's banks. Perhaps too close to the Altean main lines to warrant jeopardizing their hopes for favorable treaty terms. 

“Commander,” Allura whispers. A single word uttered with all the ferocity harbored in a soul that had survived more devastation than most ever see in an entire lifetime. 

But Shiro had seen it, the cause behind that word, the way he feels Allura pull herself up to her full height, infusing every bone with iron and will. She will not falter. She will not fail. That is what Shiro sees when he glances behind him. And when he looks before him, he sees the ghosts of his past and the ones who would make peace with his future. 

No, not just his, but the world’s.

The prince he can make out easily enough. The armor is still the same from when they had faced off this morning, though his face is left unshielded and the hood pushed back from his head. The closer the prince gets, the more that hood defines itself. Shiro can see that it is made of some sort of metal, lightweight enough to be pulled back or forward with ease but scaled in the same way the rest of his armor is. Red ripples over its scales, this ceaseless wave of color pulsing just beneath the black surface shimmer, reminding Shiro of a wolf fearless yet untrusting, ever vigilant. Flanking the prince on either side are two large Galra. The one to his left is lithe in build, with a strip of white hair running over the center of his head, a tapered jaw, and pointed ears. To the right, a Galra with broader shoulders, a more solid stance, and thick purple hair over his head that encompasses a set of all too feline ears. Behind the prince stands the largest, and last, of his retinue. A thick scar runs over his right eye, skin stained red across his brow and coloring the tops of his ears. His scalp appears clean shaven yet hanging over his shoulder is a neat braid of white hair. 

“Is that all of you?” Allura asks. It’s not an unkind question, but one would be hard-pressed to find a sliver of potential love in it. Or even _like_ for that matter. 

The Galra standing behind the prince steps forward. “It is all we thought necessary, Queen Allura.”

That they walked in here with only the four of them testifies to their actual thoughts on the matter. Four is all they would need to get the prince out of here alive should things sour between them, yet is small enough to bend a knee to the notion of integrity. To bring an army to a treaty talk may as well have been a middle finger raised to not just both parties but to the idea that war still carried any honor within its concept.

“And you are?” Another question, almost dismissive of the previous answer given. Allura steps beside Shiro and sets one hand to the table, curled into a fist with her knuckles resting lightly against its surface. Her stare doesn’t leave the small group standing across from her. 

“Kolivan, the current regent of Marmora.” He offers a slight bow of his head at that, but Shiro sees it as a small gesture of appeasement and nothing more. “This one before me,” and there he places a hand over the prince’s shoulder, “is the crown prince of our nation, Keith. To his left is his primary guardian, Ulaz, who also serves as our advisor, and to his right, a general of our armies and the prince’s second appointed guardian, Thace. And that one,” Kolivan pauses there to gesture towards the messenger, “is part of the prince’s personal guard, Regris.”

“I assure you he has come to no harm.”

Something shifts in the prince’s expression at Shiro’s words quick as a cottonmouth cutting through water. A flash of indignant anger that may have given rise to something far more dangerous if not for the squeeze of fingers over the prince’s shoulders. It’s a subtle enough gesture, but Shiro can see the way the armor outlines Kolivan’s hand in red, readying itself for rebuke it needed. Keith says nothing, however, his words kept sealed behind the thin line of his lips. Kolivan again bows his head.

“And I assure you we appreciate that. He is an honorable soldier.”

“That’s all fine and well, but what brings you here now?” Allura again, with her tongue heated like an iron spike, ready to burn holes through fabrications and false intentions alike. Not a flinch arises from Marmora’s royal group, not even from their prince who looks prepared to burn the place down and call it a day himself. 

It's at that moment that Coran pulls up a wooden stool to the table, standing like a rocky impasse between the two sides, and seats himself upon it. The action, calm and collected, calls the attention of them all. He sets about drawing a bottle of ink to his side with one hand while unrolling a piece of parchment with his other. He then sets several fist-sized sized crystals - their bottoms flat, their tops littered with clusters of rounded protrusions, and each pulsing rapidly like a heart on overdrive - at each corner of the parchment. The lavender glow from the crystals sends shadows dancing over the table’s surface, flickering like flame one second, like stars tumbling from the sky the next. The last thing Coran brings over to him is a small candle, placed at the very top of his now designated writing area. He tilts his head, quill in hand, and looks from Allura at his left to Marmora’s representatives at his right. “I believe your nation has expressed interest in establishing trade with Altea.”

Shiro tries to conceal the smile threatening to peek out from the corners of his mouth. Across the table, Marmora’s prince blinks then casts a glance up at Kolivan, who simply pats his shoulder.

“There is the matter of trade, yes.”

Coran nods his head at that. “Are you suggesting there is another matter?”

This time, it’s the one called Ulaz that quietly clears his throat. He offers a slight bow of his head towards Allura, then takes a step forward. “As we are both aware, trade is something we have sought for quite some time. It is vital for our people to have this freedom, and as Altea has refused, so to have all other nations. Returning to Galra is something we cannot do, however. So, yes, we are asking for the establishment of open trade between our two countries, though we are also aware of current perceptions of our race. But I assure you we are not the Galra of the current regime.”

Allura takes a step forward at that only to be halted when Shiro cuts a glance, sharp and piercing, over his shoulder at her. He knows what she wishes to combat, picking through those words like one does the wreckage of a home decimated by nothing more than _collateral damage_. She heeds his look, however, stepping back to his side rather than confronting the table’s edge once more. The gesture is duly noted by Ulaz, who again offers her a small tip of his head.

“But the current regime would be more than delighted to reclaim what they have lost and obliterate what they cannot salvage. Trade is not only important for our livelihood but in establishing ties with your alliance members.”

“You seek to be part of our alliance?” 

Ulaz turns towards Shiro, his brow stitched together by confusion. A faint smile pulls at his mouth. “Zarkon is not your enemy alone, Commander.”

“You do realize the Galra harmed not only Altea in these last few years, but many of those who have come to align themselves with us,” Allura says, her voice as rigid as Determination’s own spine. 

“We realize it will take time and effort to undo some of the perceptions of our race. To show the world that there are Galra who still seek universal harmony rather than universal domination,” Ulaz counters. “That is why we are willing to offer you our own prince.”

Silence stifles their collective breaths, most notably the prince’s. There’s fire in his eyes, not from anger or insult, but from a quiet, brooding sort of pain that Shiro inherently recognizes. The prince had known the terms, but he had not been given a say in them. Red undulates over his armor once more, like a flock of birds redirected by a sudden wind and now uncertain of where to land. 

“What do you mean by that precisely?” Shiro prods. He’s reluctant to pull his gaze away from the prince, but he does when Ulaz begins to speak once more.

“Consider it a cultural exchange and a show of our good faith in the people of Altea. If you are amenable to it, we would like to suggest the idea of our prince staying within the Azure Palace.”

Coran, who had spent the last few minutes plucking at his mustache, begins tapping his quill against the table. “And in exchange for us introducing His Highness to the upper echelons of society?”

“We would submit our forces to the direction of your High Commander’s purpose.” Thace. Shiro meets his gaze directly, and the two of them spend the next several moments locked in silently sizing the other up. It ends with Thace pulling his shoulders back and continuing to explain their so-called concessions. “This would not be limited to our standing army but the Blades as well.”

The Blades.

Marmora’s elite task force, which the prince is rumored to be part of or at least trained by since he was of age. But, Shiro also knows there is no adult citizen of Marmora that has not at one point been part of their military force or who could not be called upon for active duty once more if still physically capable. Thace is putting Marmora’s populace in his hands. 

And Kolivan is signing away his one leverage over Galra as a potential hostage to a once hostile nation. 

Once, because they would be fools not to take these terms. The risks are great though, and even Shiro has to admit to that. On the one hand, they are inviting their potentially strongest ally into the heart of their operations, who should they turn out to be less than honorable about their intentions would have unfettered access to their activities, aspirations, and most importantly, their heads of state. On the other hand, should their intentions be as sincere as they claim, if anything were to happen to the prince under their watch, a war on two fronts would likely be inevitable. 

“And what does your prince have to say about this?”

This time, it’s Allura who is cutting Shiro down with a mere glance. He holds himself steady, however, and offers her only the barest shrug of his right shoulder in apology. Which is to say, he’s not very sorry for the inquiry. After all, the prince has been as silent as a shattered flute when his voice deserved to be heard. 

Not one in his retinue offers to speak for him. The prince shifts his weight, the red flitting like a directionless flock over his torso once more. He rolls his shoulders back, then sets his sight squarely on Shiro. If not for the setting, it might as well have been a challenge demanding the blood of one or the other.

“I’ll do what is in our best interests. You don’t need to look any deeper than that, Commander.”

Coran clears his throat. Allura looks over at him. The prince refuses to turn his gaze aside. 

And it hits him then with the full force of a charging cavalry line that this isn’t just about the birth of an alliance. It’s not about hostages or power plays or even the courtly tutoring of a king to be. 

“Do we have terms then?” Coran asks.

Allura breathes out beside him, a low and heavy sound. “More or less.”

The prince is still looking at him, as defiant as he was on the battlefield, but he’s not the only one. Both Ulaz and Thace have been watching him, and they have been for a good majority of their time here.

This isn’t even about trade routes and building a nation up from the grit of its soil and the blood of its ambitions. This is about Altea becoming the last line of defense for a young monarch whose nation cannot afford to bleed for him.


	3. The Mount Makes the Rider

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are back with this story! It's been quite a while, but I had several other projects on my plate and struggled my way through a few other things. I haven't forgotten this tale and am excited to get back to telling it. Thank you all who have waited for patiently for this continuation! <3 And as usual, you can find me over on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/ByMidnightFlame)!

“So, are we really doing this?”

“That’s why we’re here, Lance. Because we are doing this.”

Black gives out a hard huff beneath him, her sides puffing up then deflating seconds later like a balloon whose end no one had bothered to tie off. Shiro pats her neck, a bit of solidarity, though his attention never deviates from Lance, who continues to look at him like he’s threatening to call fire and brimstone down over his hometown. It’s the look of a man who doesn’t quite believe in the gods but isn’t willing to go courting their ire either. 

Just in case.

“Yeah, I get that, Shiro -” Lance clamps his mouth shut suddenly. Shiro imagines it has something to do with the way his eyes narrowed at the familiar use of his name in a setting that still called for the regimented order held near and dear to all military units. Well, dear enough to the hierarchy of it all. Letting out a shaky breath, Lance squares up his shoulders for a second attempt. “Sir, you know I’m as open to new experiences as anyone here. Maybe even more so! But, we know nothing about these guys. What they really want, what they’re capable of. . .”

Lance’s words start to dwindle, like a desert running a river dry, until his brow is fully furrowed and his hands are constricting his reins as though they might up and slither away on him. Shiro waits it all out, quiet as their horses continue to plod along their set path. Behind him, he can hear the clatter of cart wheels as they run over the various juts and stones marring the road, the whispering trails of conversations, the intermittent whinny of a horse, and the rare laugh that defies the uncertainty woven over their group. 

“What if they’re working for the Galra, Commander?” Lance asks, his voice soft as only worry can ever make it. Like throwing open the inner chambers of your heart and hoping you won’t bleed out before you’re sufficiently understood. 

Shiro knows that to be the question riding at the forefront of his soldiers’ minds. One soon to be planted in all of Altea and her allies. After their meeting in the tent, now three days ago, Allura had left Shiro in command of the field while she packed whatever was deemed necessary and, along with Coran and the hand-chosen elite of Shiro’s personal squadron, had made her way back to the capital to prepare her nation for their newest undertaking. This included Pidge who had been more than happy to have the chance to return to her research earlier than expected. She had left Lance with a cheeky grin, and Shiro with a mostly solemn oath regarding the safekeeping of their beloved Queen (as well as a promise pulled from him in secret for a rather extravagant dessert-first dinner for suffering through Allura’s inevitable _conversations_ regarding the matters of inviting ‘the enemy’ into Altea’s heart and just how right did _right_ really have to be when it came to politics). What that had left Shiro with was seeing to the organizing of the armies - in conjunction with Kolivan - and putting together a small outfit of soldiers to escort the prince to the Altean capital. 

Aside from looking to the dead and the wounded, this had meant packing up provisions, horses, armor, tents, and all the various sundries that liked to attach themselves to an army camp in the hopes of furthering their own gains. Shiro didn’t think much about the citizens that had latched onto the back end of the camp like a fly just waiting for a tail to swish it away (there to provide any number of services from leather repairs to impromptu stablehands to home-cooked country meals accompanied by equally heart-stirring country songs and stories to enjoy them over, all the way down to black market liquor bottles and bodily bedwarmers), but he knew they needed to be attended to in some form lest they get in the way of things like moving his army in a tidy and timely fashion. He sent orders down the line, pulling soldiers, lulled from order by the battle’s end, away from their chosen camp spots and back into their command units, and with them, either payments or threats for those still clinging to the idea that their daily fortunes could be made on the back of his army.

Marmora, he had come to find, was plagued by none of these things. Everyone kept to their place, always ready to spring into action at the slightest order given. There were no hanger-ons trying to eke out what they could from the military beast before it was spent. In fact, he found that they were a battle-tested lot in a way that Altea’s and her allied forces were not. His army is still seething under the recent toils of war, which makes it a far more volatile creature prone to the emotional tides of its populace. Whereas Marmora had been under the weight of war for over a decade and had long surpassed the violence of its people’s anger, the despondency of drawn-out battles, and the weariness of existence that comes without concrete victory. 

“Knowledge or death,” Kolivan told him. Marmora’s people were brought up from their youth prepared for the endless fight and yet somehow they never lost sight of the hope beyond battle.

Perhaps that is what sustained them, in the same way that a farmer tended religiously to a grove that would not produce him fruit for years.

And while they may have been a fledgling nation compared to the likes of Galra and Altea, it turns out Marmora is a country attuned to war but not overrun by it. Marmora’s only problem lay in its small population. If Galra had thought to shift its full military attention on its borders and everything within them, it could have snuffed Marmora out as easily as a cook doused the kitchen fires for the night. 

The saving graces of having bigger fish to fry - namely, the upper echelons of Galra's military might had thought subduing the lands surrounding Altea more lucrative than attending to a rogue nation it could squash at any chosen moment.

“Just because they are Galra doesn’t mean they are acting on Galra’s behalf. There are plenty of other nations who had allied themselves willingly with Galra before joining our alliance,” Shiro answers. “We owe Marmora the same chance that we gave to them.”

Three days, and now they are here. After further discussion, it was decided that the prince of Marmora could have two members of his own choosing for his personal entourage. No more beyond that. Several border towns would also be opened up as trading points with Marmora. For a start. Depending on how matters proceeded the rest of the border may be opened up to them and trade within the capital itself would become a real possibility, eventually paving the way for the entirety of Altea. Naturally, this would require new seals and enough paperwork for Shiro to bury himself under for the duration of an Altean winter, but that was little of his own concern. He only had to see to it that the prince and his chosen guard, Ulaz and Thace, made it to the Azure Palace unharmed. 

Only two or three days on the road. Through, arguably, still hostile territory. And as for the palace. . .

Bucking more common traditions, the palace doesn’t sit within the capital but a little less than a mile beyond it to the south. From their current position, that puts it nearly two days of reasonable riding time away. A day and a half if the horses were hard-put, and the carts abandoned, but he has no reason to suspect any of that would be necessary. Or so he hopes (because one can never be too careful in wartime affairs, particularly ones of this nature which have him feeling like he’s trying to guide an arrow-shot through a needle’s eye). Shiro had marked a stop for them at a small town dubbed ‘Little Arusia’ by its occupants, transplants from the neighboring nation of Arus. It offers no more security to them than any other number of villages and towns along the route, but the Arusians are friendlier toward foreign travelers than your average Altean is currently known to be. Not that Shiro blames most Alteans for their general outlook given recent history, but when traveling with the purported enemy, the fewer questions asked, and the less trouble brewed by consequence, the better.

“No, I get that. I really do, Commander. Good relations are always something I strive for. . .”

Shiro tosses Lance another look. Not quite the narrowing of eyes, but the subtle lift of an eyebrow calling into scrutiny Lance’s idea of _good relations_. 

“. . .all right. I don’t like him.”

“Who?” Shiro asks, not even bothering to glance at Lance this time.

“The prince. His Highness. The royal with a stick up his ass. . .”

“ _Lance._ ” 

A full warning scorches that name until it’s blistered raw, but Lance only purses his lips in defiance. He leans over in his saddle towards Shiro, nudging his mount closer. Black turns her head to nip at the mare’s neck, resulting in a squeal from Blue that doesn’t quite manage to drown out the hiss of Lance’s next statement.

“He tried to kill you, and he still might.”

“If he does that now, he gives Allura reason to imprison him and execute his guard. He’ll become a true hostage of his own devising, and for all you might think of him, I don’t think he’s that stupid.”

“Situations change, Shiro,” Lance bites back. But the admonishment seems to have been heavy enough because he sits back in his saddle with all the weight of the defeated sinking into his bones. He hunches over his mount’s withers and gives her a gentle nudge with his leg. “I’m going to make sure nothing shady is happening at the back of the line. C’mon, Blue.”

Shiro lets him go with a sigh. He knows that Lance with a respectable task at hand, whether conjured by himself or another, is a far more reliable man in his actions than when he’s left to the caprice fostered by boredom. And if nothing else, Shiro is glad for a few moments to himself, if only to shuffle through his own thoughts. They should arrive at the Arusian-run inn just before sundown. He had already sent scouts ahead, prepared with the necessary information (not the who or the why but the High Commander’s signature and seal would more than suffice for securing rooms) and sorted out the rotation schedule for the watch while they were lodged there. By sun-up tomorrow, they would be well on the road again, with their little caravan expected to pull into the main courtyard of the Azure Palace right after sunset.

He’d be lying just a bit to say he isn’t looking forward to a night in his own bed after a good soaking in the baths. A thought Shiro doesn’t let himself linger on for more than a fleeting second (bees buzzed slower than the time it took for him to push that desire out of mind) for if wartime efforts had taught him anything, it’s that dreams could be felled as easily as unarmored men and just as unexpectedly. He closes the lid on all thoughts of home, straightens his shoulders, and sets to scanning the area around them instead.

Four soldiers ride ahead of him, two abreast. Several yards behind him, the prince sits astride his own mount, this small (again, by Galran and Shiro assumes Marmoran standards) but fiery mare. She’s an unusually marked creature with a solid dark bay face and the makings of a red roan body coat. Her hindquarters remind Shiro of the Krell’s snowcapped peaks, blanketed in seamless white, which only makes the jet black stockings that wrapped at uneven heights around her legs seem all the starker in contrast. Her mane and tail are as black as Keith’s armor had been, and had Shiro confronted both horse and rider on the battlefield, he can only imagine what a fine (read: likely terrifying) warrior pair they made. 

She dances beneath him nervously at times, only to settle with a whisper from her rider or a nicker from the two horses flanking her. The other two are typical representations of the Galra breed: large, stocky beasts with thick feathering around their hooves and tails plaited perfectly. Ulaz’s mount is a steel gray mare, careful with her step and gentle in her mannerisms, though it’s Thace’s dapple-gray gelding that stands taller than any horse Shiro has come across. Even Black feels dwarfed beside him. Shiro has to admit it gave him pause when he saw the horse enter the remains of their camp two days ago. For her part, however, Black showed no signs of distress when he was tied up beside her on the line, and in fact, may have even nipped at him to give her a little more space to graze. He had complied without complaint, and Black had gone back to trimming down the grass like he didn’t exist. 

No offense was apparently taken.

Sometimes, Shiro thinks the politics between horses is a far more civil affair than those of his own kind. 

Trailing just behind the prince and his retinue, two carts rumble forward, carrying whatever had been deemed necessary by Marmora, including a handful of gifts for the Altean court. Caskets of ice wine brewed from grapes known only to the vineyards of Marmora (others had tried growing them elsewhere to no avail); jewelry of intricately carved silver (Shiro had seen several of them the night before and each had looked like miniature boughs painted silver rather than metalwork alone); and bolts of silk saturated with the deepest colors of the universe - reds, blues, purples. Nestled between the carts are two young mares of impeccable Marmoran breeding. Their coats, as favored by Marmora, are such a dark gray as to nearly be black and glisten like polished starlight beneath the sun. They are the last of Marmora’s gifts, and of them all, the most expensive. Shiro had placed another set of his soldiers on either side of them out of respect for the gesture. 

Another ten Altean-clad soldiers follow the carts. With a glance down the line, Shiro can see Lance at the tail end, completing a tapering V-formation with him serving as the very point of it. Sunlight rides across his mare’s coat, and for a moment, Shiro feels like he is staring down through the translucent blues of the White Sea. It’s an unerring sort of calm, the type a soul loses itself to if you’re not careful enough. Blue shakes her head, and the spell is broken. Shiro turns his attention back to his surroundings. The countryside around them is quiet. Small farms dot the landscape, with houses set back from the main road and each homestead fenced off to discourage travelers from mistakenly veering off into farmland and front yards. Every now and then, a few heads will pop up from the fields to watch the procession moving down the road. 

As they pass by a rather large pasture, several Altean cattle with their red coats turned nearly gold under the summer sun venture to the fence. They stand there, doe-eyed gawkers, chewing their cud at the same slow, rhythmic rate that butter is churned and dreams are spun from the clouds. The prince’s horse pricks her ears forward at the sight of them and begins blowing air out of her nose in a rapid succession of hard huffs. With her head held high and her attention locked on the field, she tries to jump forward but is held back by the prince. Nothing he says seems to allay her fears, however, and as several of the cattle begin lowing, she dances back on her haunches only to jerk forward yet again. 

Shiro hears Thace instructing the prince in a voice calm and quiet, and catches the sharp quip back of _I’m trying_ uttered hard under Keith’s breath. Black begins to drift in front of the prince and his mount, slowing her pace to a crawling walk. As he glances behind him, he catches the dismissive swish of her tail as the prince’s mount threatens to bump against her rump, driven forward by her restless energy. 

“Do you not have cattle in Marmora?” Shiro calls out. 

A genuine question. As much as he would like to smile, turning it into a jovial joke, he’s more concerned about the fact that the mare might make off with the most important piece of cargo he’s been entrusted with, and worse case scenario, end up throwing her rider and causing any number of injuries to his form. Even if the prince did seem to be a capable rider, Shiro had seen plenty of seasoned horsemen tossed from the backs of fear-bitten mounts.

The prince scowls at him in answer, though his gaze harbors an uncertainty brought about by the mare’s continued jitter-dance, caged in as she is now between Shiro, Thace, Ulaz, and the rumbling cart behind her. Black lifts her head and lets out a trumpeting neigh. The cows grow silent. The prince’s mare flares her nostrils, not quite convinced that all is back in good order.

“We have goats as you humans like to call them, Commander,” Ulaz replies. “A rather wide variety of them. As well as chickens.”

“And wild boar,” Thace adds.

Shiro hums, considering before answering. Black flicks her tail again. Behind him, the prince’s mare finally lowers her head with a heavy resigned sigh. “We don’t have many boars around here, but there are plenty of deer.”

It’s the prince who perks up, leaning forward in his saddle, an eagerness to his gaze. “I’ve seen pictures of them. They’re as tall as your horses here.”

He nods and finally allows himself to smile. Something small, but well meant, and very obviously aimed at the prince. “And just as beautiful. Should you ever see ones with white coats and black antlers, don’t shoot them. They’re considered royal ambassadors and are protected as such.”

Thace gives a deep grunt at that, followed by a bob of his head. “We will keep this in mind and heart, Commander.” 

“Thank you, Thace.” 

Another glance behind, and Shiro finds himself captivated by the furrow digging itself deeper by the thought over the prince’s brow. His smile softens, despite himself perhaps, and he nudges Black to the left to allow himself a better view of the sight. For twenty-one, he still seems young. . .it’s not in the planes of his face or the look in his eyes. It’s the worry working itself over his expression that does it, Shiro realizes. Because at twenty-one, there are things no one should honestly have to bear, and yet Marmora’s prince does. Then again, at twenty-one, he had been fighting on the front lines for a war his people hadn’t invited but had found themselves embroiled in nonetheless. The world, Shiro came to understand, doesn’t take age or creed, sexuality or politics into consideration when it moves. The gears shift, driven by the hands of those who would see change happen, and oftentimes, something, someone, somewhere gets crushed in the process. 

Then there are the lucky few who survive.

“That mare. . .”

Shiro glances down at Black, who flicks her ears back as though she recognized being called out. He turns in his saddle to look at the prince. “What about her?”

He’s got his mouth twisted, uncertainty pulling his lips tight all while some small aggravation puts the corkscrew into it. At the very least, the prince’s mount seems to have settled, though perhaps in due to transferring all her pent-up energy into her rider’s head. It seems a likely conclusion from the matter, though Shiro knows it’s not that simple. But energy can transfer, just as it can settle heavily into a room or sweep over a battle camp. 

“She’s not from the Altean bloodlines,” the prince finally says, his gaze settling directly on Shiro. 

It’s a bit unnerving, how a single look like that can bore right into the very center of you. He feels it like an arrowhead in his chest, the shaft long gone but its point still biting into the place where his heart meets his soul. Shiro doesn’t know if he has the words to help dig it out of him (and bury the memories it conjures in return), but all he can do is try. With a curt nod, he swallows and gives Black a gentle pat to her shoulder. “You’re right. She’s not entirely Altean. A little after my arrival here, Allura told me how her father had bred several horses, combining lines, as a gift to give to his closest friends. There were five offspring in total.”

Something flashes dark as a midnight storm in the prince’s eyes at that. His lips pull tighter still. It’s another moment before he speaks, and in that span of time, Shiro notes the careful watch of both Thace and Ulaz over their royal charge. Waiting, perhaps, and hoping their prince might choose his words carefully. “She was Zarkon’s war-mount. I’ve seen her before. . .at least, I think it’s her.”

“You think?” Shiro asks. He has to admit he did a damn good job of keeping the surprise out of his voice with that one. 

Keith nods, his lips thinning out again into a line. “I was young when I saw her. But I remember that white blaze, and that she wasn’t like the typical Galra mounts. The black mare that could change the tide of a battle. The one Zarkon prided himself on.”

Perhaps there’s a bit of truth to that. Black is certainly a presence on the field, charging through her enemies seemingly untouched by any blade or arrow. As if she had simply phased through them, more ghost than beast on the battlefield. Those who knew her, had seen horse and rider fight, found themselves bolstered by the idea that no battle could be lost so long as she stood among their ranks. Black had saved his life more times than Shiro liked to count. Then again, he had stopped counting such things years ago. 

After all, some things are simply assumed forfeit after enough damage has been done to them. Shiro considers his life such, and while every battle he survives is one more thing to be grateful for, he never truly counts upon it.

He clears his throat and looks behind him again. “You’ve seen Zarkon for yourself? I thought Marmora had declared itself independent decades ago. According to what we've been told, Zarkon has not set foot in Marmora since.”

“It wasn’t in Marmora,” Ulaz states, firmly cutting off his prince from further elaboration. “We had been traveling and were stopped. Fortunately, nothing became of the matter.”

The intent had been clear enough - Keith is no longer to speak on the subject, and if Shiro valued their tenuous friendship, he would not press on it either. He bows his head, conceding to Ulaz on this point, and shifts to face the road before them once more. 

“She might be,” Shiro admits after a moment, feeling the heat at his back from the prince’s glowering. If not for the idea that something deeper lay at the heart of all of this, he might have even let himself consider it cute. Still reluctant to let go of the topic yet adhering to the better judgment of his elders, Keith would make for a fine king one day. If he lived that long. “I believe I owe you a story, so perhaps, once I’ve seen us safely to the inn, I might tell that one to you.”

“You promise?”

Laughter hits his tongue, and there’s nothing Shiro can do to keep it from leaping off seconds later. But it’s warm, and it’s amused, and it carries no ill will, which seems to appease Keith. “I promise, your Highness.”

The rest of the trip goes without any further hiccups. Altea’s farmlands slowly begin to give way to rolling hills, thickly forested with trees still wearing the deep greens of summer. From within them, Shiro can hear birdsong and the occasional flight of deer frightened by their passing numbers. Not a single one to be seen, but heard if listened to carefully enough. If he caught it in time, Shiro would point out the sounds to the prince, how he might guesstimate the size of a herd as it fled, or the particular bird calling its heart out and what each note was thought to mean. It made the time pass relatively well and seemed to draw the prince out of his gloom and back into enjoying a little bit more of the Altean sunshine. Occasionally, they would run across terraced orchards, cut into the hillsides and disappearing over their crests. Shiro explained these as well, how Altea is known for its golden apples, favored for baking pastries with, and blue-fleshed cherries, which are often turned into a tart but rather satisfying wine.

By the time early evening arrives, the road to the Arusian inn is paved with rose gold by the dying sun, and a chill has started to infiltrate the air. “Little Arusia” (also known by its proper Altean name of _Suszurn_ ) is situated on a plateau that overlooks the initial rise of the Balmera mountain range, a far-reaching chain that serves as a backdrop to the Altean capital itself. Two of the plateau’s sides are sheer, insurmountable cliffs that disappear into the forest below. To the east and the south, however, pathways have been carved out of its sides and allow for riders and small carts to make the climb with minimal effort. A feat made possible by the integration of Olkari engineering. On most days, traffic flows in one direction, the east typically reserved for those departing the village; the south for those entering it. 

Before their arrival, Shiro had the eastbound road closed off and set up several of his guards at its gate, including Lance. For the south, he rearranged their caravan; the carts would have to go up flanked front and back, as horses were only able to travel two abreast. Any thicker than that would guarantee someone slipping down the slopes and a horse lost to a broken leg, the rider a broken neck. 

After a quick conference with Thace and Ulaz, it’s decided that Shiro would lead, the prince would ride behind him with Thace on his right, and Ulaz taking up their rear vanguard. This effectively blocked Keith in, putting him against the inner wall of the rock face that served both as guide and barrier as they made their way up. 

Should anyone make an attempt on the prince’s life, they would have to go through one, if not all, of them. Shiro hopes it's as daunting a notion as it looks.

Further up the path, torches had been lit at each of the bends as it curves its way higher, making the whole route appear as some giant fire-branded snake. Shiro had also stationed a soldier at each of those points, adding them to the procession as they moved past until they finally mounted the summit and made their way through the village’s south-side gate. 

The gate itself isn’t a monstrosity, though it dwarfs even a still mounted Thace. It’s solid, wood bound by iron, its hinges well oiled. On either side of it, two watchtowers rise like guardian deities, the flames from their lanterns flickering against the smooth wood. Like most mountain villages, there’s also a stone wall that encircles its borders, more so to keep people from falling down a cliffside in a drunken stupor than for protection. Aside from its relatively friendly populace, Shiro had liked it as a defensive option. For what little defending he thought they might actually need on this journey.

But, it’s far better to be prepared than to find yourself caught off guard. And in the maze of political ideations and ambitions, he had learned that one could never be too ready. If anything, the most horrifyingly effective approach in battle was making your opponent feel like they were safe. Let them crown their laurels before the first fight had even been fought, and they would never see the teeth lunging for their throats. As it went for armies, so it went for cities and states. Since becoming High Commander, Shiro had learned that fact painfully well.

“Welcome to Gazrel Hill!” 

Black’s ears flick forward as the last of their train comes in through the gates. She weaves back and forth, undecided whether to move forward toward the source of that voice or to stay with the prince and his mare, who seems to have found her previous agitation and is threatening to bite the two Galra-bred horses on either side of her. Shiro holds Black steady with a check on her reins and leans forward in his saddle.

Standing at the center of a crowd is a rather short but undeniably rotund older man. His cheeks are wine-scalded red, evident even in the last of the sunlight, and the smile over his lips jovial. A conical hat of woven reeds sits on top of his head, cut to accommodate a pair of ram-like horns curling around his ears. White hair juts out in awkwardly placed tufts from under it, as if the hat itself is barely able to contain the tangle of threads. He’s clad in the typical dress of Arusians, with a pair of loose-fitting pants, dyed a rich navy blue, and a golden tunic sporting a geometric pattern of interlocking violet spirals. Bowing before them, he makes quite the sight. Mostly in trying to keep his hat in place with the motion.

Shiro doesn’t miss the faint flicker of a smile over Keith’s lips at that. Harder to miss still is Lance’s sputtering laugh, quickly swallowed and nearly choked on when he tosses a cutting glance in his direction. Lesson learned - don’t antagonize the people helping them. No matter how. . .ridiculous it all seems.

“You must be the village chief, Glaznik,” Shiro says, smiling amicably. “I appreciate your help, the help of everyone here actually, especially on such short notice.”

“Oh, no. . .no, no, no, no!” exclaims Glaznik. He rubs at his mustache, eyeing the horses and their Galra occupants nervously. “We are always happy to welcome the great warriors of Altea! But I did not. . .realize there would be others as well. . .”

Others. As in not human, not Altean, not Arusians. _Others_. Of that ill-defined and oft dreaded variety.

Clearing his throat, Shiro gives a nod, careful to keep his smile in place. “Yes, we are traveling with allies of the Queen.”

A murmur runs through the crowd, faster than a spark burning through tinder but no less a threat. Black stamps her foot impatiently. Silence falls over the crowd, all eyes, including those of the village chief’s, falling intently on the mare. She could easily crush any number of them. Arusians, after all, rarely exceeded a horse’s shoulder in height.

“It’s been a long day on the road,” Shiro says, his tone asking for understanding. There’s only so much information he will allow to slip. Asking for any more would be inviting more trouble than he currently has the patience to deal with. “Perhaps you could show us to the inn?”

Giving him a task seems to do the trick. Whether the unspoken had been understood or not (Shiro is leaning towards the ‘not’ given Glaznik’s wordless gaping before he had been prodded on the issue of the inn), the crowd begins to disperse with an explosion of sound. Somewhere in the mix, Shiro thinks he hears flutes and drums, and catches the flash of flame as a fire is lit further down the road in the town’s central pit. 

All in all, Shiro could walk the length of the entire village in ten or fifteen minutes. From the east and south gates, the two roads converge into one main thoroughfare that leads to the central area of the village, which is where Glaznik is currently leading them. Stone huts line the way, their conical thatched roofs left open at the top point where smoke puffs out from a number of them. The inn is a much larger building, two stories high and towering over the majority of the village. Scattered around it are several other buildings, each easily two to three times the size of the homes, with wooden signs hanging from iron posts above their doors. Aside from the inn, Shiro makes out the symbols designating a blacksmith, leatherworker, a bakery, and an apothecary. The market, comprised of several colorful tents, makes up the northern third of the town’s central square, just opposite from where the inn stands.

“There’s a stable attached to the inn’s backside, but it won’t be enough for all the horses.”

Shiro glances over at Lance, who had urged Blue through the crowd and is now trotting into place beside him. “I thought I sent you to the east gate.”

“Yeah, yeah. . .we’ve got that covered. Some Arusian named Klaizap said he was the town’s best archer. Something about the chief sending him out to help with the watch or something. So, I thought I should at least check out the inn. Make sure things were in place, you know?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And uhh. . .they’re good. I mean, I know you already took care of things ahead of time and all, but I didn’t remember you saying anything about the stables.”

“There’s a pasture out behind the houses on the west side of the village. That’s where they bring in the sheep for the night.”

“Ah, so. . .”

Shiro waits for Lance to figure it out. In the meantime, he loosens his grip on the reins and lets Black move as she pleases, which is generally in line with what he wants. And she does, sticking to her role of guiding the prince’s mare in her wake, though she lowers her head and shakes it, rattling the reins against her neck. The crystals set in her mane twinkle faintly, giving slow pulses of light, more like dying embers than hope-loaded stars.

“What does that mean exactly?” Lance finally asks. 

When Shiro looks over at him, he can see the trepidation in his eyes. Lance already seems to have realized that this is information he should have processed well before arriving at the village. 

“It means our horses will be staying at the inn, where there is space. The rest will be put out with the sheep,” Keith calls out, somehow managing to sound both haughty and irritated in the same breath.

Lance spins around in his saddle, quick as a wasp-bitten polecat. His hand brushes over the quiver of arrows at Blue’s right shoulder, but a second thought, a better thought, moves it back over to her reins. It doesn’t stop Shiro from imagining the hackles raised along the back of his neck though like a cat unceremoniously uprooted from its mid-afternoon nap by the yapping of an ill-favored dog. Before he can issue a warning, however, the strike is already flying from Lance’s tongue.

“Oh, shut-” A half-second’s pause of reconsideration. Shiro could almost bless him for it. “I knew that, _Your Highness_. I was just checking. . .making sure Shiro. . .the Commander here was on the same page.”

“On it? I think you just found the page,” Keith snipes back. 

Ulaz shakes his head. Thace’s lips draw tight. 

Beneath him, Black grunts. Shiro exhales, trying to decipher if the muted pounding at the back of his head is an impending headache or the distant thunder of trouble rolling up behind him.

“Lance, how about you better acquaint yourself with the layout of the town? Maybe show everyone where they can place their gear and get their horses taken care of before turning them out.” As he speaks, Lance’s eyes start to go wide. It’s not a reprimand, not entirely. But Shiro can see the way his words are being taken, like bits of shrapnel to the flesh and digging deeper with every syllable. He’s not entirely sorry for that, grateful at least that Lance seems to have understood he carries some fault in this. Drawing in a breath, he lets his shoulders relax, a mere fraction of an inch, and offers a smile. “When you’re done, Blue can go in the stall beside Black. I know she does better with a familiar soul around her.”

The exhale of relief is audible to them all. What gets Shiro though is the light that finds Lance’s eyes once more. A glint of afternoon sun over summer seas. It tells him this would all be okay, and that hopefully, Lance would better consider his position before letting his position get the better of him.

“Yes, sir!”

With a knock of his fist over his heart, a typical pledge of allegiance for most in Shiro’s ranks, Lance turns his mount and begins calling for a headcount of those already filtered into the village’s square. Not, as Shiro keenly notes, without a suspicion-laden look over at Keith. He breathes out, hoping to release some of his own tension with it, and bows his head towards their Galra companions. 

Before he can speak, however, Ulaz holds up a hand. It could close around his skull easily, all ribs encasing a heart with room to spare. “Save your apologies, Commander. There was as much fault here as there was on your end. I only hope all involved have learned a lesson.”

The last of his words are spoken with his eyes squarely on the prince. Keith, for his part, casts his gaze to the side, but not once does he drop his shoulders. Concession seems unlikely to find a roost there, and Shiro finds it oddly admirable. If not a bit foolish. But he had heard rumors. . .a lack of _political_ training is what they had called it. Given that Marmora had so few ties to other countries, it doesn’t surprise him. It’s one thing to go through the motions, particularly with trusted (albeit seemingly strict) teachers, but another thing entirely to put them into practice on the field. 

Again, politics and war. . .Shiro wonders which is the worst battleground. He’s all too aware of how the engagements in private chambers and ballrooms alike can affect his own army on the field, just as much as a battle’s loss or win can change the tide of power in those very same chambers and ballrooms. All so integrally intertwined. Some days, it felt like they were all chained to the same boulder, dragging them further and further beneath the waves. That’s how the machinations of one could lead to the demise of the whole. 

“As much as I appreciate the gesture, Ulaz, allow me at least to promise better from my soldiers in the future. This is as much a first for them as it will be for those you’ll encounter from here on out.” His words are taken with a nod from both of Keith’s guardians. The prince merely flicks a glance in his direction and tightens his hold over his reins. This will not be his only testing ground. Shiro imagines that his guardians might be grateful for it, though. For Suszurn carries far less bite to it than some of the other arenas the prince will likely find himself in soon. 

“Champion!”

That title cuts into him like no other. But as with all old wounds, Shiro had long since grown used to its ache and had learned to move despite it. He turns toward the village chief, his smile affable, and raises a hand to indicate he had heard. 

Glaznik rushes over to him, then slams to an immediate halt when Black swishes her tail, his hat nearly toppling over with the sudden motion. Craning his head around, he watches the mare’s back legs intently, wide-eyed with a distinct lack of curiosity. More like overloaded concern, if Shiro had to put a word to it. Or words, in this case. Concern alone doesn’t seem to encompass all that he sees there upon the village chief’s face. Deeming her movements carried no ill-will, Glaznik finally straightens his hat and smiles up at Shiro. “I have spoken with Moontow! Everything is ready at the inn, so if you would like to follow me -” A gesture at the inn’s front door accompanies that. “- I will place you in her care for the evening.”

Shiro bobs his head in agreement. It seems sound enough, although. . .

“What will you be doing, Glaznik?” he asks, dismounting in one fluid motion. Black grunts again, skin rippling over her shoulders, the firelight putting a burnished sheen to her coat with the movement. The prince follows suit, sliding from his saddle easily, then walking towards his mount’s head and looping a few fingers through her bridle’s cheek piece. Only when Keith’s feet have touched the ground do Ulaz and Thace dismount as well. They move their horses into line with Keith’s, one on either side. It strikes Shiro again how. . .human the prince appears, standing there between the two Galra. Even his skin is paler, similar to Shiro’s own, not a trace of lavender to be found across it. No cat-like pupils either, no feline-esque ears. Just that too-human stare and thick black hair atop his head, falling in ways that no Galra’s ever seemed to. It almost makes him want to run his hand through it, just to confirm the difference for himself. 

“Oh, me?” Glaznik’s hands flutter before him like drunken butterflies, unsure of where to go, entirely too unsteady. The corners of his mouth echo a smile. “I was going to find the musicians. They seem to have disappeared. . .”

“It’s okay.”

All heads turn toward the prince. He’s standing where Shiro had last seen him, gaze firmly on Glaznik and his fingers still wrapped around his horse’s bridle. For a moment though, it seems as if he hadn’t even realized he had spoken himself. He merely stands there, consumed by silence. And then, he blinks as his cheeks start to flare red and the realization sinks in. No further explanation arrives, however. Just continued quiet, the prince’s lips sealed in a tight, if not slightly embarrassed, line.

“But we always greet such esteemed guests in this way,” Glaznik states, uncomprehending. 

“It’s fine,” Shiro says with a wave of his hand. If he was going to admit anything, it’s that he’s grateful for the prince’s words. The banging of a drum at this hour seems about as welcoming as a trip down into a mud-filled ditch. “As I said earlier, it’s been a long ride in, and I’m sure we would all appreciate a meal and a warm bed for the night.”

Uncertainty gnaws at Glaznik’s smile. His gaze shifts from one body to another in Shiro’s small but odd congregation of horses, Galra, and human. Looking, perhaps, for a word otherwise on the matter. He finds nothing of contention among their lot and is left with only Shiro standing there before him, smiling in a way that invites no questions on the matter. Even recognizing that, Glaznik still looks like he’s about to insult the gods by agreeing to a relatively quiet night.

Maybe there’s a brush against mortality in that. Shiro knows it from the battlefield. The god-fearing find it in just about every other place. But maybe this has nothing to do with the gods and perceived rituals of welcome. Maybe this is nothing more than a village chief recognizing there are authorities above his own, and there is nothing godly about them. 

It’s simply the balance of power, weighed far too heavily in Shiro’s favor. 

Maybe that’s what made the gods in the first place. The stories of them that is. . .Shiro never much cared for them. At least, not after certain phases of his life. 

“If the High Commander is okay with a more humble welcome,” Glaznik reluctantly agrees, “then I shall alert the cooks and tell them you will all be in shortly to feast.”

To feast.

Shiro bites back his own desired dismissal of that as well and offers a tight smile in return. There’s only so much pushing that could be done on matters of hospitality before you started to run that hospitality thin. And though the Arusians are known for being a more resilient lot when it came to such pushing, he would rather not strain the situation any further. The unease at having Galra in their midst is still detectable, and if this was to be their first, albeit unofficial, diplomatic mission, then Shiro knows it’s his duty to smooth over the sheets in this bed they’re hoping to make. 

“That sounds wonderful, Glaznik.” Behind him, Black snorts. He glances at her, narrowing his eyes, and is greeted by a shake of her head. _Laugh it up_ he wants to tell her, but Shiro knows she understood the look well enough. She’s an uncanny mount in that respect, always more attuned to him than he seemed to be with the world around him sometimes. “We’ll take the horses to the stable. Tell Moontow once we’ve gotten them settled, we’ll be inside.”

"Yes, yes, of course!” 

Did the village chief sound a little too happy over that? Perhaps the prospect of having the horses out of the way is more relieving than Shiro had thought it could be. One won’t ever see a horse among Arusian settlements; he knew that much. They tended to sheep, finding goats too unruly, and used miniature ponies on rare occasions. For their day-to-day, they typically utilized petikperrons, medium-sized canine-like creatures (not so large the average Arusian didn’t stand over it), with thick dusty white coats, oversized pointed ears, and splotchy black tongues that could often be seen lolling happily from wolfish muzzles. From herders to cart-pullers, there wasn’t an Arusian business that didn’t have at least one lingering about its door. On their march in, Shiro had seen only a handful, however. Most, he assumed, must have been out with the sheep. 

“You’ll need to follow the path to the left. The stables are against the village wall, behind the uh. . .behind the inn. . .” Glaznik’s hands flutter before him once more, making vague gestures toward the rear of the building. His eyes have fixed themselves on Black’s hooves yet again. “Just allow me to. . .step aside. . .if you would. . .”

A flash of a nervous smile. Glaznik steps out of the way, though in Shiro’s opinion he had never been in it, and proceeds to give a wide berth to the horses. As they start their procession down the path, the village chief, along with the other Arusians in attendance, all bow their heads. The reed hat slips toward his face, causing him to grab for it once more, but he doesn’t lift his gaze, Shiro notes. Rather, it remains determinedly glued to the dirt beneath him. Not from any sense of piety, but rather, from fear. Shiro can sense that as easily as he can smell the fire on the breeze, and the acrid scent of sweat and leather from Black. 

It stings to consider that, though he’s aware of the fact that many nations do not harbor honest love for their sovereigns. Again, that balance of power, the seemingly irrefutable tales of birthrights and the god-ordained - those things that brought cultures into line for the better of the greater good. Sometimes simply for the greater, with the good left to be debated years down the line. But Shiro knows the Queen is well-loved by her people. Including those who had taken refuge in Altea’s borders or aligned themselves to her cause. If she represented the idea of honest good, then it’s the Galra who stood for the greater good, by which they were the greater and all that was Galra was good. 

Marmora, even if it isn’t part of the Galra empire any longer, couldn’t shake off its Galra roots or its Galra populace that easily. But Thace and Ulaz, the most obvious representations of that, carried themselves without concern for the fear that followed in their wakes. They moved with their heads held high, their attention captured solely by their prince, who moved as if he could feel the weight of that fear as keenly as he could a knife at his throat.

The stable finally comes into view. It's a small building, all things considered, with room enough to comfortably house six horses. Upon closer inspection, Shiro can see that the stalls were typically divided into even smaller spaces, more appropriate for miniature ponies. The back of the stable is the stone wall encircling the village, its height rising several feet more above the roof of the stable itself. Just as Glaznik had said. There are no stall doors to speak of, but a net of braided leather that can be strung across the front of each stall hangs limply beside each. Fresh straw had been spread across the floor, and buckets of water rested before each opening. 

Shiro allows Black to drink deeply from one of them before taking it up and setting it aside. He’s positioned her at the stall nearest the pathway they had just traveled. On the opposite side of the stable, a smaller wall rises out of the dirt, making a small courtyard behind the inn. A heavy wooden door remains closed at the backside of the building, but he can already hear the hiss and sizzle of food being cooked, the muffled voices of orders being shouted and confirmed. Ulaz leads his horse into place beside Black, leaving one stall empty between them, and is followed by the prince and his mare, then Thace and his gelding. With a pat to Black’s neck, Shiro sets about untacking her. 

Just as he’s pulling off her saddle, a wave of murmurs stemming from the path calls his attention away. Five Arusians stand clustered together, each holding a basket full of vibrant green grass. Black wickers, nostrils flaring. She pushes her head into Shiro’s side and sends him hopping several steps toward the group. He laughs, reaches out to run a hand down the white stripe running down her face, and finally hefts the saddle to his shoulder. The three Marmorans turn to watch curiously. 

“Hello there,” Shiro greets. 

The one nearest to him waves. She has horns similar to the village chief's, smaller, though, and a vibrant orange in color. They stand out all the more against her black hair. To Shiro, they appear young. Not quite children, but lacking the height of the adult Arusians, and as he scans them each in turn, he can see their horns are all just as small as the one who had waved at him. 

“The loud one said your horses might want this. . .” Her voice is thin but confident. The others nod in confirmation behind her. 

“The loud one. . .?” Shiro muses, brow furrowing. 

“She must be talking about that one soldier, Lance.”

Shiro blinks, looking over his shoulder at Keith. The prince has his back to him as he works to pull the saddle from his own mount, but the voice had unmistakably been his. 

“I’m not sure. . .”

“The loud one, yes!” 

This statement is echoed by each of the Arusians, one after the other, followed by smiles that seem content with the sound of their chorus. 

“He said they like this. Same as the sheep!” comes from the back of the pack, the smallest of them all, with dark brown horns that curve up high over his head before curling back around. 

“And he gave us flowers to deliver them!” This one comes from the left side of the group.

It’s then that Shiro notices them, the white flowers tied around each wrist. He starts to smile, feeling that warm flourish in his chest as pride wells up. “I can see that! Well, Lance is correct. The horses, I’m sure, would appreciate the grass. Thank you.”

His words, or maybe it’s his smile (it has been blamed before despite all his best arguments), causes several of them to blush. With their gifts accepted, one Arusian after another scurries over and sets a basket before one of the stalls, though a solid five feet away from each horse. After a flurry of bows, they run around the corner of the inn and disappear with a burst of giggles. Black paws impatiently beside him. 

“Give me a moment,” he tells her, hefting the saddle over the wooden side of the stall. His gaze meets Ulaz, who has something of a small smile teasing his mouth. He says nothing, and instead, bends over to inspect each of his mount's hooves. With a shake of his head, Shiro does the same for Black. 

By the time he’s finished looking her over, including a quick rub down, she’s nipping at his hips and forearms every chance she gets. Each bite earns her a soft word encouraging patience and an even softer smack against her shoulder when she fails to listen. 

The prince doesn’t seem to have fared as well with his horse. A spat of muttering catches his attention. Shiro glances over just in time to see the mare shove her head into the prince's back and send him rocketing forward toward the basket of grass. Thace barely stifles a laugh, the sound morphing into a grunt as Ulaz cuts a sharp look in his direction. Stalking back toward the stall, the prince is all but glowering. Yet, he doesn’t raise a hand against her, doesn’t yell or even growl. He merely takes her reins, places a hand to the point of her shoulder, and forces her back into the stall from which she had emerged. 

“Keith, perhaps you should take the basket with you,” Ulaz says, his voice carrying the quiet cadence of instruction. “Rasnyx has always worked better with mutual trust and motivation than with single-sided force. You, of all people, should be aware of this.”

The prince steps back with a huff, looks like he wants to unload a body’s worth of complaints, then merely grits his teeth and goes to gather the basket. His mare whinnies, shrill and triumphant. When Keith trudges back towards the stall, Shiro can see the scowl dominating his lips.

“Rasnyx? So, that’s her name?”

Keith drops the basket but doesn’t let her eat right away. First, he lowers into a squat before it, fingers circling the bright blue rim as if caught on a thought. After another moment, he begins to rifle through the basket, turning aside clumps of grass, removing clods of dirt still attached to the roots of some. His mount waits patiently despite her previous show of demand. 

For all the talk of trust, Shiro can see both horse and rider share more than their actions seem to let on. 

“It means Red One,” the prince says quietly. He plucks out a yellow flower and sets it among the pile of things to be discarded from her meal. “In the Old Language. That’s the name they first gave her.” Keith doesn’t say it, but his tone relays enough - the Old Language, _Galran_. His lips curl in a faint grimace, only to relax a breath later. With a flick of his eyes toward Shiro, he finishes his thoughtline, as if trying to make amends though Shiro doesn’t know what for. “I call her Red. She doesn’t seem to mind.”

“Was she not bred in Marmora?”

Keith blinks at him. “No, she’s. . .”

The rest of that statement, much like first loves and idle dreams, is abandoned to the perceived threats of the reality around him.

“She is one of the Firsts. Much as your beloved Black is.” 

Thace. He's staring at Shiro from over his horse’s back. He has both arms resting across its spine, and unlike the rest of their mounts, his is already munching greedily through its basket of grass. 

Ulaz shakes his head and smiles at him, everything about it gentle in its apology. “A story that you owed, was it not said?”

“It seems you already know a fair bit,” Shiro replies. His back had stiffened despite the kindness in Ulaz’s voice, and his hands had stilled against Black’s neck. As much faith as he wants to place in them, he also knows there’s far too much neither of them knows about the other. It’s a bit like sticking your hands in a river, hoping to catch a fish, only to feel most slip through your fingers with a rough slide of scale against skin. Just enough to feel the truth of what he was looking for, but not enough to define it, to hold it in his mind and verify where exactly they all stood. He heaves out a sigh. “But a promise is a promise.”

Though he had said nothing, Keith had clearly been listening in to his exchange with Ulaz. Not that there had been a need to hide it. But once Shiro pledges to keep his end of the bargain (if one can even call it that, but words shared on the battlefield are ones Shiro liked to honor, though those were usually the wishes of the dying and not promised tales to a princeling), Keith’s shoulders visibly relax, and he returns to brushing Red’s coat like nothing had interrupted him in the first place.

“Do all of Marmora’s royalty attend to their mounts?” 

In Altea, expecting Queen Allura to untack and rub down her own horse, as fond of Pleisto as she is, would have earned most a week of cut rations and an immediate dismissal from duties. Things the Queen suffered because of her status. Shiro knows she wouldn’t have thought twice about taking care of Pleisto, and on the battlefield had done so numerous times to free up her staff for more pressing war matters. In fact, several of his most vital communications with the Queen had occurred in the stables, both yard and stalls, though he had often feigned tending to her horse to keep up the illusions royalty so often required to maintain their crowns. 

“There is no one in Marmora who is excused from the basic duties of war. We all fight as one, we train as one, we live as one,” Thace explains. His voice carries a quiet rumble to it, like a storm brewing on the horizon full of distant thunder and life-renewing rain. A rich sort of darkness. “Though it is true our prince is vital to our cause, he was trained as all Blades are.”

Shiro can understand the reasoning for that. After all, there’s no telling who might fall on the battlefield, and there are many who succumb to sickness rather than blade or arrow. This isn’t limited to the soldiers, but to the staff brought along as well. A soldier who could not hunt for himself or tend to his horse could be as much a liability on the warfront as a dull sword. It gets harder to hold those expectations, however, the larger an army gets. A luxury Marmora still had - smaller nation, smaller army. 

“Besides, we believe, as do many of your kind, Shiro, that the bond between rider and horse is of great importance. Tending to their care is one way to establish and reconfirm that bond,” Ulaz supplies. There’s still that smile hanging about his lips, an apology that wants to be made but will never find the words to give it life. 

“Is that why you’re here tending to Black? Because of your bond?” 

Keith is looking at him, innocent in his curiosity. As if, at one time, he had been fascinated by the tales of humans and their animal companions. It’s the same sort of look the children of the capital’s schoolhouses gave him as he calmed their whirlwinds of questions with his answers. His heart stumbles over the sight. So, even Marmora’s prince still retained some of his youthful innocence. Despite everything. . .

When Shiro smiles, there’s a different sort of warmth blossoming in his chest. Difficult to define, no easier than trying to trace the outline of a flickering flame, but somehow still settling. He’s starting to see why Thace and Ulaz seem so fond of their royal charge. 

“That’s part of it, yes,” he says, once more running his hand down Black’s neck. “She’s an important part of what I do. Without her, Altea may not be where it is today. So, it’s as much a part of our bond as it is my way of saying thanks for all that she does.”

Something contorts the prince’s mouth, twisting it far too prettily for such a heavy look. Shiro wonders if he said something wrong, but just when he goes to open his mouth, Keith nods, more to himself, and smiles faintly as he looks at Red. “I thought Alteans were more like the Galra. Like a war machine. . .their horses just another tool to them.”

Shiro shakes his head, his heart assaulted by a mysterious ache. Was it the prince’s words, that quiet accusation leveled against the nation he had called home for the better part of three years? Some sense of loss due to the perceptions that plagued them all, coloring their views of the world and their would-be enemies in shades the enemy themselves wouldn’t recognize? Or is it something else entirely? He studies Black for a long moment, watching her as she cranes her neck, one ear cocked in his direction, the other trained on the movements to her opposite side. 

Finally moving to gather the basket set out for her, Shiro replies, “Not all Galra are like that. Just as there are humans and Alteans who see their mounts as replaceable. They have spares like you would a sword -”

“A sword is more easily broken!” 

“ _Kit_. . .”

That single world stops Keith in his tracks, though Shiro had seen it, the look of dismay, the horror in his eyes at such a concept. But the world is not that simple. There are evil thoughts spurring evil deeds and blackened souls all over. Such things are never confined to one nation or another. Only fools believe it to be so.

Besides, if that were honestly true, then Shiro knew he wouldn’t be standing here now. 

Keith returns to a squat before Red’s basket and sulkily pushes it towards her. But rather than eat, she shoves her muzzle against his head and starts to nibble on his hair. He simply lets her, determined, it appears, to allow his moment of anguish get the better of him. After another moment, he rocks back on his heels and wraps his arms around his knees. Shiro watches how, after one particularly insistent tug, Keith’s expression starts to crack. Bit by bit, the hardened irritation built on his chastisement gives way to a different sort of irritation. One far more open, far more amused in its making. It’s the thing that says you want to be angry but you can’t, because you love far too much. The prince swats at her face; she bobbles her head back and forth in return, undeterred. He pushes at her again, and she huffs out hard enough to send his hair fluttering. Only then does Keith relent. 

Plopping onto his backside, he stares up at Red and toes her basket closer to her front hooves. “Really?”

She huffs out again, lifts her upper lip at him, then snorts before dropping her head to the basket. 

A laugh breaks out of his mouth, and there’s nothing Shiro can do to take it back. It’s small, quiet. Typically one would barely notice such a sound, but aside from the muffled clanging and banging from the inn’s kitchen, and the occasional tail swish and grass grinding between teeth coming from the horses, the stable area is quiet. His amusement quickly falters in the face of Keith’s incredulous stare, only to find itself validated by the smile poking out from behind Thace’s hand. Concealed, just not well enough. But Shiro thinks that had been the point. 

Clearing his throat, Ulaz clips the net into place across his mount's stall. “I believe the horses have the right idea. And from what I can detect of it, dinner smells delicious.” He clasps his hands before him, his gaze settled on the prince.

It takes him a moment, swinging his attention from one guardian to another, but eventually, Keith rises from the dirt. With a brush of his palms against his thighs, he settles his gaze on Shiro. The touch of petulance there doesn’t escape him, nor does the faint quirk of his lips after as if to tell him he’s seen nothing yet. That this. . .this had all been just a momentary bump in his royal road and had absolutely nothing to do with his abilities to cut Shiro down should he deem it necessary. It’s a reminder of last words spoken: _I don’t know yet._

Shiro doesn’t know if this had been a misstep, something he will pay for down the line, the way the smallest of wounds can turn grievous when improperly tended. But Keith’s eyes burn brilliantly in the faint firelight spilling from the inn’s windows. When he passes Shiro, he’s a man claiming his own destiny, shoulders back, steps solid and true, his gaze holding to Shiro’s like there is nothing in this world he would bow before if it wasn’t worthy of all he knows himself to be. This is the man Shiro had met on the battlefield. It’s the one whose life is in his hands. 

“You owe me that story, Commander,” Keith says, his voice low as he pauses just beyond Black’s stall. 

This time, when Shiro laughs, there’s the flicker of a smile over the prince’s lips. 

“So, I do.”


End file.
